Pratt: God will carry you through present sorrows, losses to come
Life has a way of issuing strong medicine about the time we get to feelin' too big for our britches is something my late Aunt Beatrice might have said.
Then she would have launched into a hilarious account of an escapade that would have most people huddled alone, weeping in despair.
Not Aunt Bea, although there were plenty of times when most of us would be crying instead of making a funny story about our troubles.
If I recall correctly, at one time she held three jobs as she worked to save the small family farm from debt. And that's all that I can say out of respect for family tales that don't need public airing. She didn't live anywhere near this area, but most farm families have those stories of bad weather, bad markets, the cotton weevil, etc.
But if one of her sisters had trouble, Aunt Bea would be on her way to help out if at all possible. My mother and her sisters lived through troubled times that today's older generation (that's my contemporaries) probably couldn't survive.
My conclusion? Hard times can either make you stronger or break you, and they decided to hold on to faith that God would carry them through in their present sorrows and whatever losses were to come. What a legacy they left us.
Yes, Aunt Bea was a bit bossy, but not even the devil could defeat her.
That's how tough people survived throughout the history of developing a new world of freedom for the common people. Good times come, and our children have no idea what they missed. But they, too, will have the bad times as well as good.
And I believe that despite our whining, spoiled descendants who look for a hand-out rather than a hand-up to achieve their dreams, we still have people of candor who can recognize truth and have the courage to pursue that which will sustain humanity until God calls them home.
What we do see throughout recorded history is that ease of life and great riches feel really great at first, but mankind is soon bored by the easy life. We are uneasy.
Read the book of Ecclesiastes, its wisdom gathered and recorded by the richly blessed King Solomon as he gives voice to what represents the yearnings of all humanity. But at the end, none of his riches in coin, power or knowledge quiets a heart that searches to find meaning through all the earth and fame offers.
It is a divine relationship for which we yearn even as we substitute worldly acclaim and wealth instead. An appetite for power over others brings us war and suffering, but still we pursue it as surely as the drug addict hungers for the next “hit.”
Finally, Solomon realizes he has searched in the wrong places to find the contentment that eludes him and delivers to us the core message of life itself: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NIV).
Meanwhile, all those in churches acclaiming their Christian faith and heritage will do well to put aside cultural differences and concentrate on a prayer for unity in being faithful to biblical teachings about how we should live and witness to our neighbors with the compassion Jesus demonstrated.
We don't all have to look identical in appearance or worship rituals to become one in spreading God's message of rescue and restoration that promises an Eternity beyond our ability to imagine.
Nor do we need to fear the future. The victory is ours, not through our own goodness and strength, but through God's plan for human redemption, the willing sacrifice of his Son on a cross made with human hands.
Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: God will carry you through present sorrows, losses to come
