On the headstone, the final words are written, they are the epitaph, written by the ones who hardly know. There are two dates, and there is an epitaph.
I remember the incident very clearly in my mind. I know that that’s when and where a sweet, beautiful boy
– who loved me and cherished me, the one who knew that I loved him with my heart of hearts –
… he came to me and he said please help me with my daddy. And…
Well, did I help? Did I?
What do you remember?
…that’s what I need to know.
I am still, and always will, be doing the best I can with what I’ve got… being merely human. See Isaiah 2:22, but is that just my excuse?
Well, for what it’s worth, I remember that day, also.
And have also carried a kind of wound ever since.
Did I know that I had no voice?
Did I suppose I had no power?
I’d been there done that in the past!
I’d tried!
I had mounted my troops and went to war!
The result was my bloody end, and a lot of collateral damage!
Was I ever to be seen or heard from again?
…except in a grave such as the one pictured here.
…so that day, I chose to remain.
Don’t you remember what I told you that day?
Until just now, until just now… yet I wonder, am I still here?
To be honest, I just don’t know. But, I know!
I know!
I know!
I know who holds the future!
Desmond! Turn to God, and tell him all about it!
Yes, oh yes, that’s me, your grandpa waiting for you!
What’s in my left hand there?
That’s the things I have to do, my day-to-day.
You didn’t know I had a dog!
But, look! That dog is happy! He’s excited to see, you, Desmond coming down that path!
Can you see those little incidental flowers growing there?
And the epitaph? Those are the words that settled on your heart as you tried to understand…
The question in your little soul, what was it? Was it “Why did grandpa just walk away?”
The wound… it’s the wound that needs to be lying there in that grave! With the epitaph!
It’s not you!
It’s not you and I!
It’s not the “you and I” that is grandpa and Desmond!
If you were allowed to speak!
If you were allowed to shout the words!
What might they be:
Why, oh why, did YOU!
Why did you forsake me, grandpa!?
Why did you walk away and leave me here?
Yet it’s not me, who beckons you,
He beckons to each of us, to “come and see”
it’s our father God, in heaven, who bids us each to come and see!
To make our way, each of us, down the path, to where God dwells.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Romans 1:21 NIV
…another way of putting it is:
But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
Romans 1:18-21 The Message
…another way of putting it is:
Now the holy anger of God is disclosed from Heaven against the godlessness and evil of those men who render truth dumb and inoperative by their wickedness. It is not that they do not know the truth about God; indeed he has made it quite plain to them. For since the beginning of the world the invisible attributes of God, e.g. his eternal power and divinity, have been plainly discernible through things which he has made and which are commonly seen and known, thus leaving these men without a rag of excuse. They knew all the time that there is a God, yet they refused to acknowledge him as such, or to thank him for what he is or does. Thus they became fatuous in their argumentations, and plunged their silly minds still further into the dark.
J B Phillips
…another way of putting it is…
Well, how would YOU put it? How would I put it?!?
I was angry because things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I didn’t understand this life, and the things that had been handed to me by God! I didn’t think too well… the tyrant… why did so many powerful oppressors so easily place me under their power!
Thank him?!
Thank God?!
Are you freaking kidding me?!
What do I have to thank that tiny little god, who wouldn’t lift a finger to help me???
…and MY thinking became futile! MY foolish heart was darkened!
But then, GOD, he sent his light, his merciful gracious light!
He shone HIS light into my soul!
AND he said,
HE called to me…
…to come out of that cave, and so I emerged, and as I walked towards His voice…
And I had heard these words before, written down some where… as I walked toward that burning, that burning light…
Quote:
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Exodus 3:4-5 NIV
As as I fell face down, prostrate before the Lord, our God, he reminded me of the words Christ Jesus spoke,
Matthew 7:1-6…
I had my work to do… those planks and logs…
Running Down Vimy 