A Journey Whose Bones Are Mine

AM Psalm 119:1-24 • PM Psalm 12, 13, 14
Deut. 1:1-18 • Rom. 9:1-18 • Matt. 23:27-39

My husband liked music and he liked to eat. It is wrong to limit his loves to just that because he loved to read, loved books, filled our house with books and when we moved to Arkansas told me he wanted one entire room, the fireplace room, to be a library. We had two lovely floor-to-ceiling book cases and he ordered four or five more of them to be made to match and they arrived and were put in.

As for music he listened. He called to me, “Rebecca, come hear this…”

He cooked. Outdoors, he built a bread oven so that “he might know how the bread of the Romans tasted.”

He loved children and he loved church. After he died I realized he was with me in spirit. “Good for you, Rebecca” so that I was comforted and also guided.

When we moved to Arkansas he was delighted with Walmart and engaged people there in talk. People I thought might not be my type he struck up conversations with and with them exchanged wisdom. He was delighted with Arkansas.

I told other people who had also lost their loved ones about this.

“Good for you” they might hear when they got up in the morning and fed the cat and turned on the coffee. And all this time later this is still true. It is as true as it is true that God loves all of us and guides us.

Today’s reading from Matthew: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not! Woe to you scribes and Pharisees. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!”

May we love others as God expressed it by “gathering his children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” And may we know we are loved.

Written by Rebecca Newth

...who is still on the journey.