Last week, I was going to write about leisure. Instead, I just took some time off and had leisure! Maybe I’ll revisit the topic next week. After all, with our anniversary this weekend, I’m about to do several things that classify as leisure.

But this week, I felt burdened to write about something not quite as fun.

I can blame it on the Bible studies that I’ve been attending and doing. The focuses have overlapped. I can blame it on life and the trials and struggles I see around me. Or even the emotions that beset me for no logical reason. But the trigger came this past Sunday.

I was walking to tutoring. Lately, when I’m scheduled to work on Sunday, I will walk from church to Huntington because it’s only about a mile and it invigorates me before I sit for two to three hours.

As I walked along, there was a guy out in front of one of the smaller houses on the street. I’ve walked by him before and since he never smiles or says hello, he makes me uncomfortable. So I was keeping my eyes on him as I approached, hoping he would leave or go back inside.

With my eyes on him and the sound of the traffic, I never heard footsteps until another male voice said, “On your left.”

I jumped, totally shocked that his arrival snuck in under my radar. I pride myself on being aware of my surroundings and listening/watching for anything untoward.

But yet, a man made it to strangling distance without my noticing.

Fortunately, he just was out for a walk and wanted to pass me. I was walking down the center of the sidewalk and needed to give him some room.

Still, potential danger had made it to my heels and I had been oblivious. I was so attentive to what lay before me, that I neglected thinking something could come in behind me.

Satan and his forces are like that. We can be looking at a danger or distraction that evil has placed in front of us and miss the sneak attack from behind. And the studies that have been overlapping have been on spiritual warfare.

I feel certain that a lot of the things that have been going on with those I love are in the spiritual battle arena, even though I only see the fallout in our day-to-day existence. Coincidences with feelings or situations—across hundreds of miles—are just too strange to not be connected. And since I know they can’t be connected in what we call reality, they must have a spiritual component.

Should I walk through each day terrified that an attack may come? No. When an attack comes, I have one job—to stand with Jesus. When it subsides, I walk with Him. Either way, the battle is his because he already won it when he rose from the dead.

In other words, He’s got my back.

In a way, I have been writing this post in my head for over a month. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to write it yesterday and on time.

Ah well.

This coming Monday means two things for me. They sort of intertwine. First off, my next story for Havok online magazine goes live. I promise, this one really is a 70s song! https://gohavok.com/story-calendar/ It is entitled, The Call.

Monday is also the one-year anniversary of my mother’s passing.

I thought it oddly apropos that they scheduled that story to run on that day. Because Mom obeyed her call home on September 30th.

After I returned home from the funeral, I started calling my dad several times a week. First, just to check on him and then we got in the habit of talking. But he didn’t always hear the phone. Sometimes he was outside, sometimes he was playing music. And then I would get the answering machine. “Natalie Johnson” she said, followed by the computer voice “is not available”. For a couple of months, I heard her and the oddly fitting statement from my phone. She was not available. Nor would she be until I join her in heaven.

This is not how I imagined her life playing out. Both of Mom’s parents lived into their 90s. Others in her family lived to be over 100. I was convinced that Mom had that heritage to look forward to. Statistically speaking, her family had long lives. I kinda took that as a guarantee that I would have Mom around until I was in my 60s.

But not one of the Wallentine siblings lived up to the family trend. They all passed away younger than their parents, some before their parents.

The truth of the matter is, no matter what our genetics might be, we don’t know the date that God will say, “This life for you is done.”

Knowing that, we can choose how we live each day. Do we live it dreading our end or do we live in the promise of heaven? That all depends on who we have chosen to follow in life. That all depends on who we serve each day.

Mom lived with gusto. I can proudly say that she chose to live abundantly. Would she have lived longer if she hadn’t taken the cruise through the Panama Canal or the trip to the Arctic circle? Maybe. But she wouldn’t have been her then. The same girl who would go careening down a steep brick hill in roller skates was the same woman who did these things in her last year.

And she was the same woman, who, when in pain, would tell me, “I just want to go home to be with Jesus.”

Well, Mom, you took that call. Someday (hopefully many years from now), I will too. See you then.

“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, Rejoice!” Philippians 4:4

That sentence in Scripture is written in the imperative. That means, as any writer or grammarian knows, that it is a command. The Bible doesn’t say, “rejoice if you choose to” or “rejoice when you feel like it”. Nope. It says “rejoice always”.

Lately, I’m having a hard time obeying that verse. I see so many around me, people I care about, struggling, hurting or sad. I feel fragile, too, like one more bad thing to happen and I would shatter into pieces. All is not right with the world and I can’t pretend it is. If you asked me what I wanted to do, I would say, I want to crawl into a corner and have a good long cry. Then, I’d love to pack it all in and become a hermit (partially—I’d drag Gary with me) somewhere where I can pretend that the problems of the world don’t exist. I really envy the ostrich’s ability to stick its head in the sand right about now.

I don’t have to obey some Biblical platitude under these circumstances, do I?

Yea. I do.

Unfortunately, I know who wrote those words in Scripture and under what circumstances. If anyone deserved to say, I’m going to have a good cry, give up and hide from the world, it was Paul. He was in jail, in Rome. He was surrounded by idols and false gods and the people who worshipped them. He was facing a death sentence by decapitation. People he loved were hurting and dying. The world was under the control of a crazed emperor. It seemed like everything was falling apart and hopeless.

But that’s the way of the world. Paul, in telling us to rejoice, was reminding us to look beyond the world, beyond today. Look up! See who’s on the throne in heaven. Remember the boundless love of God.

A poem I wrote a long time ago, kept echoing in my thoughts as I wrote this.

Millennial Lamentation

I find no joy in the things of this world,

The leaders, the land, the hearts of men,

All decay continually like so much dead flesh.

I watch the souls evaporate in hell's heat,

Making animals of human beings.

I am a Jeremiah, weeping for my people,

Shedding a tear each time Satan smiles.

Still, through it all, I see God's hand.

He is ever in control!  He has not left His throne!

And I rejoice that the Love of my soul

Holds all which is dear...

And He will not let go.

Now, I’m going to go put on some music and dance until my mind can accept this truth—for today. Tomorrow, I’ll probably have to do it all over again!