Apr
12
Written by:
Route 365
4/12/2010 7:22 AM
written by Mary Ayala
A roller coaster of emotions. That’s what this passage feels like to me. When David and his men reach Ziklag, they find it destroyed by fire and all the women and children taken away as captives. Two of the captives were David’s wives. As a mother, I can’t think of anything more distressing than the thought of something happening to my child. I remember when Beth was first born and they had to take a blood sample from her heel. I burst into tears when she cried out in pain. That’s what David and his men did as well. They “wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” But David’s pain went beyond his sense of loss; he also had to endure the angry bitterness of his men because they blamed their losses on his leadership. Every leader knows what it feels like to face the displeasure of followers. I know I made unpopular decisions as a principal but thankfully no one proposed stoning me. And then suddenly, without warning, this roller coaster ride of agonizing losses and acrid recriminations comes to a screeching halt. David stops focusing on the circumstances that he can’t change and finds solace in the unchanging strength of his God: “But David found strength in the LORD his God.”
I’m not a great fan of roller coasters, whether at an amusement park or as part of everyday life. I prefer to have my feet on the ground and I prefer to maintain the illusion that I have some control over what happens to me. But when life proves otherwise, I am learning what it means to find my strength in the Lord instead of in my own resources. I’m finding God’s strength in the quiet stillness of time spent with Him and coming to more fully understand how His power “is made perfect in weakness.”
Your Fellow Traveler,
Mary
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1 comment(s) so far...
Re: 1 Samuel 30:1-6 : No Strength Left to Weep
This is just where I am today, Mary--not that anyone wants to stone me, either. Thanks so much for your eloquent reflection.
By Karen Wood on
4/12/2010 8:33 AM
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