Tough Stuff

I always get pictures in my mind's eye when people are telling me about this or that horrible incident in their life. I picture things like a mulcher grinding up a tree - a perfectly good tree. The person was just doing life when suddenly they have to deal with some bogus bit of roughness, and now they are just shredded mulch in a trailer, and they have to glue all of those pieces back together and keep on keepin' on. Or, I think of the way a freight truck going 60 mph would hit a wall of styrofoam - those terrible messy little bits just flying everywhere - the individual's life never again the same all because of one incident. It forever changes things, and it's almost always awful and sad.

I heard a sermon on Christian radio recently where the pastor was talking about scripture and its various helps to us in life - armor of righteousness, sword, wisdom-and-discernment-giver. And then he talked about how Satan, as the Bible says, roars like a lion on the earth seeking ways to destroy our efficacy for Christ. I can just picture him, stalking back and forth, a fierce look in his eye (for the devil is not the simpering little man in the baggy red suit he is sometimes imagined to be) desiring to tear us limb from limb in pursuit of our hearts. The pastor went on to say that the Bible is a tremendous source of help for us in the face of this. It gives us strength (along with prayer). Hardships come. They shatter the little life we've been piecing together and they threaten to ruin us. But the Word of the Lord stands forever. May it give strength and hope where there seems to be none, and may God spread His mercy over the afflicted.