Life With My Shepherd

For the last few months, I have really been digging in to the 23rd Psalm. Just a little background: when my father passed, my half-brother was preparing to conduct the service; he asked for a specific portion of Scripture that, perhaps, to my father was meaningful, and my mother suggested Psalm 23. At the time, I bit back all my snarky, judgmental, and ungodly thoughts about her response. My mother's choice of Psalm 23 "fit the profile," so to speak, of a religious woman trying to appear as though she knew what she was talking about. And I was bitter about the religion and hypocrisy in which I was raised. Additionally, my father always told me his "life's verse" was Proverbs 3:5,6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

Psalm 23, or rather, my mother's choice of it, was another reminder of just how out of touch my parents were with one another.

BUT GOD... He is giving me another chance. And, just like God, He is using some of the same players and same mile markers to do it. (I think He does this so that those of us who tend to be a little slower at learning can recognize just how He is taking us down the same paths. Think of Peter, being restored in John 21, so many familiar reminders: a great catch of fish, Peter plunging into the sea and racing toward his Lord, the smell of the fire as Jesus cooked them breakfast --fish and bread, and the three times Jesus questioned Peter's devotion.) God has inserted my mother into my story in a BIG way. After living with us for eight years, she is now in a nursing facility; but just weeks before she left, I had begun reciting with her the 23rd Psalm. It brought me comfort and I pray, stirred something within her heart and her memory to do the same for her as we navigated this difficult path. That was precipitated by an interview I had heard, an interview with Jeremy and Monica Chambers (the son and daughter-in-love of my now in heaven half-brother who all those years ago conducted my father's homegoing). Additionally, I'd been sent a beautiful poem months before, another tasty little morsel along this trail of restoration. The poem was so lovely, I ordered the book, not realizing the impetus for the author's writing was Psalm 23. In The Book of Common Courage, K.J. Ramsey unpacks this psalm with her writings and meditations. If I could add another mile marker, the bringing to my attention the poetry of Leslie Bustard, a daughter of God also providentially relocated, recently stirred a long dormant love for poetry and the Psalms. And three years ago, when things got really dark for me, I resolved to work toward fitness --body, mind, and spirit-- including dealing with all of that anger and unresolved bitterness I had toward my parents. To know that God has brought me to Psalm 23 as part of that process might be considered ironic if it wasn't so typical of Him. 1 Corinthians 1:27-31 (NLT) says:

Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God. God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, 'If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.'

Ironic maybe; some of those "mysterious ways" in which people tend to claim God works perhaps. Definitely another mile marker on this journey of life with the Shepherd, my Shepherd, and yours also, if you will allow Him to lead you.