CXIII

1 CORINTHIANS 13:4

LOVE SUFFERS LONG AND IS KIND; LOVE DOES NOT ENVY…

BROCK STORM

It’s strange how a person’s own mind can sometimes feel like an enemy. For the last week, I had been dealing with something like jealousy issues. The reason I say something like, and not the real thing, is because it was more of temptation to jealousy than actual envy.

You see, consciously, I was happy about all three of the things that had been plaguing my mind off and on for days. I truly wouldn’t change a thing. But on a subconscious level, I felt, I don’t know, left out and a sense of loss. But by the grace of God, my affliction was light, educational, and the most prominent torment turned into an incredible blessing.

The first came when my ex-girlfriend wanted to talk to my wife in private. The two had been civil enemies up to this point, and it always made me uncomfortable. When they returned from their talk and were behaving like long lost sisters, I strangely felt left out for some reason.

The second also began after the two women returned. My old friend and roommate when I lived in Miami had showed up unexpectedly at the same time as Nora’s presence was  in our neck of the woods. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I had informed my old pal Tito via text message that the FBI Special Agent was in town.

Nora and my good buddy, Tito Bonnano, had gotten to know each other over the years Tito and I shared a house together. I wasn’t a Christian back then, and Nora and I were more like friends with benefits than an actual couple.

Nora’s demeanor has always been more like a guy. Yet she was quite striking in appearance, even though she usually sported short hair and refrained from physical adornments. She also has an athletic body on par with a female MMA fighter.

Long story short, the four of us went to dinner that night. Tito discovered Nora was due for a month long sabbatical. He runs his own investigative business and was between cases. Nora did something I never personally witnessed her do. She passed off her current case to another agent, and my two friends whisked off to Florida together. I fought off an unreasonable sense of betrayal from both of them. It was ridiculous since I was very happily married. Why should I care? So I joined my wife in the hope of a possible romance between the odd couple.

Then Destiny told me about our seventeen year old adopted daughter calling her Mom for the first time. Marcella had also said that she loved Destiny with all her heart. I was overwhelmingly happy for Dee and even prayed with her in thanksgiving to God for the breakthrough. What hurt, though, was Marcella had never called me Dad and never verbally expressed love. As a matter of fact, she seemed to avoid avoid me if at all possible.

Marcella had acquired a learner’s driving permit a few days previous. She was very excited, but then Dee told her that she needed to talk to me about going for a drive for the first time. Almost one hundred hours went by before she tentatively entered my shop as I tricked out a Harley Davidson Sportster.

“Hi Marcella, come in,” I told her.

“Are you busy?” she asked nervously.

“I’m never too busy for you,” I said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

“You know how I got a permit to drive the other day?” she asked tentatively as she tucked a long strand of blonde hair behind an ear. I noticed her fingers tremble when she did so.

This made my heart ache that I somehow caused her to feel uncomfortable. I also didn’t fully understand it. When she and Oralee were with us only a short time, in a fit of rage and fear, she had bombarded me with a series of punches when I tried to demonstrate self-defense techniques. She even bloodied my nose in the process.

She had been very remorseful, apologizing profusely. I readily accepted. Yet in some ways, the incident paradoxically both opened a relationship between us and strained it at the same time, even though I did my best to let her know all was well and that I understood.

Yet I didn’t understand. How could I? I didn’t know what it was actually like to be a young girl sold into prostitution, unloved and unwanted other than as a sex object for the most vile human beings on the planet. Also never knowing the love of a true parent.

“Sure I do,” I almost sang. “Remember, Dee showed me it when you two got home that day. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” she replied bashfully as she cast her pretty, bright blue eye to the ground briefly. Then her eyes met mine, looked to the right, and she continued, “Mo… I mean Des…”

“Your mom wants me to take you out driving,” I said with a big grin.

“Yes,” she responded with a nervous laugh. Her eyes met mine for a second, then rotated to the left.

“I’d be glad to. When do you want to go?”

“Whenever,” she said with a casual shoulder shrug.

“How about now?”

“Really?” she asked as she made eye contact with me for a record seven seconds.

“We’ll take Dee’s car,” I told her.

We took my wife’s Volkswagen Bug to a vacant parking lot first. She did really well. She concentrated hard, and I had to refrain from chuckling when her tongue would squirt out of the corner of her mouth. Then we went on some country roads. Once again, she did good, but I did find myself squeezing the door handle a couple times.

We finally pulled into our driveway with Marcella still behind the wheel, she gave a satisfied sigh as she grinned from ear to ear.

“You did great, Honey,” I blurted spontaneously, and then stiffened at using a term of affection.

Yet I was about to discover, hindsight is better than foresight. Marcella’s hesitancy with me was in large part because of my own caution around her. Destiny had tried to nudge me into being more involved with her, but I was just too dense to get it.

I was also too thick headed to realize what my wise wife had done by making me take Marcella driving. It wasn’t because I was a superior driver than my wife, or because Destiny felt unable to teach her. It was so Marcella and I could bond. And bond we did.

“Do you really think so?” Marcella beamed.

“I really do,” I grinned at her as I raised my fist. She tapped her fist into mine as she giggled.

“Come with me, I want to show you something,” I told her.

She followed me to my shop, and I pulled the tarp off of a vehicle. It was a 1963 Ford Ranchero, one of the Falcon style years. I had bought it from a neighbor, it was all original. It had seen better days due to its age, but the old farmer had taken great care of it.  I snatched it up before it was sold at an estate sale.

“Wow, that’s pretty cool,” she said, then giggled. “And old.”

I pulled out my phone and showed her several pictures. “Here’s a few things we can do to it when we restore it.”

“We?” she asked with wide, puzzled eyes.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Dee told me you’re interested in mechanical things.

“Yeah,” she shrugged.

“Can I ask you, Marcella, how come you haven’t come out to hang with me in the shop then?”

She shrugged again, put her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, and rolled her feet in a shy, hesitant manner.

“Well, anyway,” I continued. “After Dee told me about you being interested in mechanics, I came across this old girl and thought it would be a fun project for you and me. That is you want to, maybe I shouldn’t assume.”

“No, no, I’d love to,” she said quickly, but then she shrugged again. “If that’s what you want.”

“Well,” I said, then I shrugged again. “I just thought it would make your first vehicle more special if you sort of created it.”

She gasped and then slapped a hand to her chest. “You bought this for me?”

“I did,” I replied with a happy grin.

“To drive?”

“Well, that’s what you typically do with automobiles,” I joked.

“But why?”

“Well, usually to get from place to place.”

She giggled and then said, “I mean, why did you buy this for me?”

I shrugged, thought about being cautious, but threw it to the wind and said, “Because you’re my daughter, and I love you.”

Her eyes bore into mine as she stood stone still. Now I felt like looking away, especially when tears began to stream out of her clear blue eyes. I shoved my hands into my pockets, and for the first time with Marcella, I looked away from eye contact first.

“I love you too!” she blurted, fligging her slight body into mine. Her hands gripped the back of my sweatshirt as I gently placed a hand on her back and stroked her silky blonde hair with the other. Then she spoke one word that caused tears to come from my own eyes. “Dad.”

Dear wife, my Destiny. Now I know firsthand how wonderful you felt last week when your experience with our daughter was so similar. I couldn’t be more grateful for how you arranged this unforgettable moment!

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part VI)

The Passover visit of the child Jesus.

With most people in the days of Christ, the observance of this feast had degenerated into formalism. But what was its significance to the Son of God!

For the first time the child Jesus looked upon the temple. He saw the white robed priests performing their solemn ministry. He beheld the bleeding victim upon the altar of sacrifice. With the other worshippers He bowed in prayer, while the cloud of incense ascended before God. He witnessed the impressive rites of the paschal service. Day by day He saw their meaning more clearly. Every act seemed to be bound up with His own life. New impulses were awakening within Him. Silent and absorbed, He seemed to be studying out a great problem. The mystery of His mission was opening to the Savior.

In this visit to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph wished to bring Him into connection with the great teachers in Israel. While Jesus was obedient in every particular to the word of God, He did not conform to the rabbinical rites and usages.

But seating Himself at the feet of these grave, learned men, He listened to their instruction. As one seeking for wisdom, He questioned these teachers in regard to the prophesies, and to events then taking place that pointed to the advent of the Messiah.

They would not admit that they had misapprehended the Scriptures. They claimed to teach from one to another passed the inquiry, How hath this youth knowledge having never learned? The light was shining in darkness; but “the darkness apprehended it not.” (John 1:5)

Jesus did not ignore His relation to His earthly parents. From Jerusalem He returned home with them, and aided them in their life of toil.

For eighteen years after Jesus had recognized that He was the Son of God, He acknowledged the tie that bound Him to the home at Nazareth, and performed the duties of a son, a brother, a friend, and a citizen.

By one day’s neglect Joseph and Mary lost the Savior; but it cost them three days of anxious search to find Him. So with us; by neglect of prayer and watchfulness, we may in one day lose the Savior’s presence, and it may take days of sorrowful search to find Him, and regain the peace we have lost.

Many attend religious services, and are refreshed and comforted by the word of God. But through neglect of meditation, watchfulness, and prayer, they lose the blessing, and find themselves more destitute than before they received it. Often they feel God has dealt hardly with them. They do not see that the fault is their own.

It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit.

If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross.

Beholding the beauty of His character, we shall be “changed into the same image from glory to glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)