"At this junction of my life, I never saw what was about to take place. Being the very sheltered daughter of a country doctor, life was simple, but hard. My mother had died giving birth to me, and all along I had been daddy's right hand man. We did everything together. I had helped him as he was called out at midnight, candle in hand, to the farms all across the county. I always went with him, even when I was very, very young. Some one's loved one would begin banging on the door, and it was that clarion call that they were sick, or bleeding or even dying. We would climb into our wagon, after daddy gathered up his bag of instruments, and set out to a farm somewhere down the old road that led from our place to what ever house we were called on to go.
This one particular night, I remember arriving at the old abandoned shack at the edge of town. No one had ever lived in it as long as I could think back. The boy that had banged on our door couldn't have been over eight years old. What were they doing squatting here? Where had they come from? What were we going to find once we got there? The little boy was scared, real scared. He told my daddy his Pa had been shot. I wanted to go to Sheriff McGuire's house, but Daddy said we needed to attend to the man right away. When we got to the door, the lock had been pounded off by what looked like a rock. What was left over, from that part of the door, was lying on the front porch like so many pieces of forgotten rubbish. The woman that greeted us was sweating; her hair looked sleek, and out of place, in the light of only one candle, blood covered her hands. What had happened here we did not know. She was agitated as she led us to the corner of the room where on a small cot was a man whose shirt was bathed in crimson. Daddy knelt down, tore open the shirt where the wound was, and went to work. The man groaned as pressure was applied by the expert touch of my Father. Then something happened that changed my life forever. A man; angry, dark, and wild rushed in, knocking the door off it's hinges, he had a gun in his hands, they were shaking as he shot the man lying on the cot in the head. Then he turned the gun on my Daddy and put a bullet in his chest. How come when tragedy strikes we are never truly prepared for it?"
I wrote this several weeks ago right before tragic circumstances happened in my life and to the lives that I love the most. Writing is a passion, and I wrote this piece for a blog called Five Word Monologues. If I look carefully at the time period just prior to the sad events, I can truly say that the Holy Spirit gave me some foreshadowing. Writers use this technique to give the reader a clue what is going to happen in the story. I remember thinking about a month ago, that I felt so very close to the Lord that maybe I was going to die. I didn't, but it sure feels like death has surrounded me and those that I am closest to.
Of course, the above monologue is fictional, but it is very symbolic. Not that I am such a good writer that I crafted it ahead of time to be that way. It has turned into an allegory of my life in some ways. I am the little girl helping her daddy as he serves others by healing and restoring peoples hearts to see where true life is. I have been doing this for a long time. We serve, help, and bandage wounded souls that only Christ with His expert hands can heal. These last few weeks though, I have watched as the one that I have served side by side with was shot in the chest. Symbolically, of course, but it seems to feel the same. A physician of the soul has been wounded, shot, and the tragedy of it all is it wasn't a stranger who pulled the trigger, it was those that had walked with him for almost two decades. Then, once the trigger was pulled, others rushed to the man who pulled the trigger, who carried out the disaster, to comfort him, to console him, not the man bleeding and dying with a bullet in his chest.
I am a Calvinist. I believe in the sovereignty of God. He is on His throne, and He does all things for our good. I am holding on to these truths with my whole being. I love Him, even while I watch the others that are wounded as they have been brought to my house for consolation, and direction. I know now what it feels like to be the family member of one's spouse that has died. Except, I have not been allowed to rejoice that my loved one is in Heaven with Jesus. He is still here fighting the fight of faith, through the discouragement, the anguish of seeing others in pain, the betrayal, and the complete loss of everything familiar before February 25, 2008.
My husband and I have walked through some very hard times in our lives. We have not been immune to pain, suffering, and loss. We brought his mother home to our house to die. He preached the funeral of his brother, who was murdered. He buried both of his grandmothers. He lost his father at the age of six. We began our married life being completely rejected by my side of the family. I have over come abuse as a child. God has always brought our good and His glory about in the hardest of days, and I know He will again. Right now I only see the ones that I love bleeding from wounds in the chest. I am fighting the bitter bile that comes up through my throat, and only by God's grace will I recover. That reminds me of the scene in RingLord of the Rings where Frodo is talking to Gandalf in the Mines of Moriah. Frodo notices that someone is following them. Gandalf points out that it is Gollum their enemy. Frodo says that Bilbo should have killed Gollum when he had the chance. Gandalf says to Frodo, "who are you to deem out justice? How do you know that Gollum doesn't still have a part to play in the quest?" Those of us that think that we know what true justice is, don't really want real justice carried out on our behalf! Who is to say that Gollum isn't the real hero at the end of the story? After all Frodo's strength failed. He couldn't part with the ring. What if Gollum had not been there to bite off Frods's finger and fall into Mount Doom? God will use it all, and redeem it all. Even the Gollum's, the bullets, the betrayals, the wounds, the pain, all of it, or else His Resurrection is in vain.
This time, awaiting the restoration.......
Challenge from Upsidedown Bee 
