Ponderings

Devotionals, prayer & insights from my Bible reading

Air conditioner irony

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The high today is still in the triple digits, but I’m wearing a sweater, because it is Freaking. Cold. in my office. There is a thermostat on the wall, but it serves no purpose except to taunt me–the actual temperature control is located in a neighboring office (which is, oddly enough, not nearly as frigid as mine). I have to pause from typing and blow on my fingers now & then.

You might wonder why I don’t call in a maintenance request. I used to, but I gave up. They’ve come to check on it numerous times over the past, oh, seven years that I’ve been in this office suite, but it seldom changes longer than a day or so. Then, it’s back to being cold again.

I am fully aware of what a whiny first-world problem this is. I should be thankful to have air conditioning. As I was grumbling to myself earlier (I’m the only one in the office today, so it’s ok to talk to myself), I was humbly reminded of a prayer request that I offered up last night. I came home from the grocery store and thought maybe I was just flushed from unloading the car, because it felt warm. 😦 We’ve had problems with our a/c again this year; if memory serves, the HVAC folks have been out three times. I stood in the hallway with my hand on the thermostat and prayed: “Lord, I know that it isn’t a huge thing in the grand scheme of the universe and there are bigger problems right now, but it would mean a lot to me if you would fix this a/c and spare me the expense, time and stress of having to deal with it again.”

I woke up in the middle of the night CHILLY! It was blissful. I said a thank-you prayer and then got to my office and complained about how cold it was. Sheesh – I think God must be shaking his head at me. He graciously answers my prayer at home, and then I am a total ingrate at work.

So, I hereby end my mumbling and grumbling about my frigid office and choose to be thankful. And, tomorrow, I’ll try to remember to bring gloves. 😉

The Makings of a Sci-fi Movie (Prayer devotional for the week of Sept. 11)

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Have you ever read a passage of Scripture, then shook your head in wonderment about what just happened? Acts 12 is like that. The chapter heading refers to Peter’s miraculous escape from prison, and if it was made into a movie, it would definitely fall into the sci-fi category.  The scene opens with King Herod the Persecutor, as he mulls over how else he can tighten the vice on the early church. Verse two mentions that John’s brother, James was killed by the sword, and the Jews liked that so much, Herod decided to arrest Peter, as well.

So, Peter gets thrown into prison under the watchful eye of 16 soldiers. The night before his trial, an angel appears, strikes him in the gut to jolt him awake, somehow breaks the chains binding him, and they casually walk past the guards and out of the prison. Peter thinks he’s having a wickedly awesome dream until the angel suddenly disappears, leaving him in the dark street.

It’s too bad for the guards, though, because Herod puts them to death just as swiftly as he killed the believers. He doesn’t seem to lose much sleep about it, though, and he goes back to his kingly duties of patronizing people. Some brown-nosers from a neighboring country come calling and exclaim that Herod’s voice is like a god, not a man. Instead of even feigning humility and giving credit to God, Herod just gloats in the praise. So, what does God do? He strikes Herod dead on the spot. Now that’s a scene that would make for a good sci-fi movie.

Here’s the kicker: Verse 24 reads, “But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.” No matter how much Herod tried to squash the church with fear tactics, they didn’t back down. They continued to defy him and follow Christ’s teachings, instead. They were—as we’ve been talking about for weeks—weird. In the face of death threats and persecution, would we dare to do the same? Many Christians are facing such threats, even today. Let’s focus our prayer time this week on particular countries & regions where persecution is rampant.

Palliative care

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This may be a tacky comparison, and if so, please forgive me, but I don’t feel like talking about the real situation, so we’re going to talk about cancer, instead. Compared to most people my age — and many who are older than me — I have experienced a lot of grief in my [relatively young] life. I have attended a couple dozen funerals (conservative estimate) and could check off multiple items on the Life Stress Inventory.

In fact, as a point of reference, I just took the inventory and scored 508. The quiz told me: “OVER 300 POINTS: This score indicates a major life crisis and is highly predictive (80%) of serious physical illness within the next 2 years.”

Yeah, um, things are a wee bit frazzled in my life right now.

So, back to the cancer analogy. I lost a dear family friend to cancer, and I’ve been thinking about her lately. She was sick for a very long time. Then, she’d perk up a bit, and treatment would seem to be working. Then, she’d get sick again. Then, they’d try some experimental stuff, and she might or might not respond. I had the privilege of talking to her on the phone shortly before she died, and I was thankful to have the opportunity to tell her that I loved her.

In her last days, the focus seemed to be on palliative care. I’m no healthcare professional, but from what I understand, palliative care is when you try to manage the pain, stress, etc. to make someone more comfortable when there really is no hope for recovery.

No hope. That’s a hard thing to wrap my head around, as a believer in Christ. I want to believe that there is always hope. I believe in a God who can (and does!) heal miraculously. Sometimes, for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever understand, that healing seems to come by means of letting that person’s body die.

It’s one thing to provide palliative care, in a physical sense. There are medications available to help alleviate pain, and so forth. But, how do you provide palliative care when the problems aren’t physical? What can you do for a dying relationship, for instance? Hope and pray that things will change? Wait for things to change? Try to force things to change?

And when they don’t …?

There’s no palliative care for relationships. You can try not to hurt people; you can try to ease the tension, but it’s going to be painful, no matter what you do.