Gen 24:52-36:43
Matt: 8:18-12:21
Psalm 10:1-15:5
Proverbs 3:7-26
"I am so over the Old Testament." I actually spoke those words to a friend last year. I think I continued with something like, "Its just so old and boring." Spoken like a scholar. Ah if only I could take back the bottomless pit of stupid I have put into the spoken word. I have been on a rabid rampage of reading this weekend, determined to get caught up to where I am supposed to be. I am surprised that the more I read, the more I need/want to read. This has never been the case for me in the past and I like where this venture is taking me. I enjoyed the verses regarding wisdom in Proverbs, and I'm fairly sure it is no coincidence that the verses in Psalms that grabbed me, all had to do with the destruction a tongue can cause. I jotted so many notes out of Matthew that those comments will need to wait for a later date. But it's Genesis I want to get back to. In the beginning (no pun intended) it was just my wish to get through this book of the Bible and on to the "good stuff." I know. I'm just the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to my unenlightened condition. Genesis is the beginning after-all. A rich history of the patriarchs of the Bible; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's all about family and I am freakishly obsessed about family.
It is mind boggling to me how messed up these families were. And I get an odd sense of comfort from their examples of weak or wavering faith. After-all if these people, who lived in a time when the chosen would actually hear the audible voice of God and see His blessings first hand, could have moments of weak faith it could only shine well on the rest of us right? The last 12 chapters of Genesis have been something off the Lifetime Movie Channel. Lying, cheating, conniving, and that's just the sibling rivalry. A mother assisting a son in stealing his twin's blessing, a son-in-law being tricked out of the wife he thought he was "buying", the wives of Jacob competing to see who can give him the most sons, and my favorite, Esau trading his birthright for a bowl of stew. While the exact scenarios within these chapters were more extreme than anything I can relate to, God's reaction to them was not. He takes our bad choices and brings goodness out of them, sometimes even despite our flagrant disobedience.
I met my husband in 1983. He had a two year old daughter and I had two daughters ages three and eight, and an eleven year old son. We knew early on in our relationship that we were meant to be together and seven months after our first meeting we were married. Eight months after that we had a baby boy (it would be very rude of you to judge me). We were off and running on our version of yours, mine and ours. I like to say it was much like the Brady Bunch if you could picture the Brady's (hypothetically) on crack and armed with weapons. Blending a family is not for the faint hearted. There were days when I would climb back into my bed, fully dressed shoes and all, pull the covers over my head and scream into the pillow: "I HATE MY LIFE!!!" It was always something. The only thing that balanced out the drama was the sibling rivalry. I still feel ashamed when I think of my infantile tantrums. Shortly into our marriage my husband became a tanker pilot. He puts out forest fires with an airplane. This takes him on the road from May or June until November or December. This was a dynamic that sometimes compounded my frustration but it also contributed to the richness of our very non-traditional family life. Now I treasure those memories and am aware of the countless blessings amid the utter chaos.
When I was six years old I knew all I wanted to be when I grew up was a wife and a mother. I had a very distinct picture of how I thought that life should look, very June Cleaver. Seventeen probably wasn't the wisest age to start this dream, but like Esau, I wasn't thinking things through to the consequence part. But God continuously takes my bad choices and turns them into blessings. The truth of my reality is far better than anything I could have planned for myself.
It is obvious from what I am reading in Genesis, that the dysfunctional family started long before this word became a popular psycho-babble term. I am the original hater of everything cliche but isn't it just so like God to put the fun back in dysfunctional?
Family: the ties that gag and bind
- Erma Bombeck-
When I was six years old I knew all I wanted to be when I grew up was a wife and a mother. I had a very distinct picture of how I thought that life should look, very June Cleaver. Seventeen probably wasn't the wisest age to start this dream, but like Esau, I wasn't thinking things through to the consequence part. But God continuously takes my bad choices and turns them into blessings. The truth of my reality is far better than anything I could have planned for myself.
It is obvious from what I am reading in Genesis, that the dysfunctional family started long before this word became a popular psycho-babble term. I am the original hater of everything cliche but isn't it just so like God to put the fun back in dysfunctional?
Family: the ties that gag and bind
- Erma Bombeck-
