Bitter Sweet!
My faithful Friend: September, 2022
This particular month has some importance for me. It was Sharon’s birth month, where for just over three weeks we were the same age (she didn’t like that, but we had fun with it). It is as well the month of her ‘final fight, when she finished her race, and kept the faith.’ Paul has put that so well! (2 Tim.4:7) Apparently it has been five years! At times it’s more like a few months, and then sometimes feels like decades. Yet I’m doing well, even if I’m still a poor cook.
She was so bright, wise, accomplished, astute, yet, so lovely and loving, one didn’t want to let her go. That was bitter. It was hard to heed the Holy Spirit’s soft words that she was to be with the Lord. Yet, that was sweet, because the cancer had taken so much of her, and it was far better for her (again the lingering of Paul’s wording). And she would not like this world we now find ourselves enmeshed in (of course I don’t either). Yet, this world has not been our doing, but the malfeasants of but a few. This too is very bitter.
We have a ruling or political class, that seems bent on turning our Judaic-Christian civilization into something resembling Venezuela, or the old Soviet Union. Aided by a media that has no voice, just echoes, an economy in shambles, and senseless happenings that common sense should have laughed off stage long ago. Like men can give birth? What nonsense! And men parading naked in women’s dressing rooms, just because they say they’re a “woman.” It wasn’t that long ago such perverts would have been arrested for indecent exposure. And if they had tried it around Sharon, it would have cost them dearly. That’s both bitter and sweet.
We have a “Social Media” that is confusing, complicating, and misdirecting our younger generations (and the facts indicate it is social media doing it). We have an epidemic of preadolescent girls that think they want to be boys, and a media, even schools and governments encouraging, even in some cases forcing such dysphoria. That when nearly ninety percent of all those that undergo these supposed changes regret it later, and suicide are all the more likely. Why are there so many stupid, uninformed, even malicious people? I do know why, and that is truly bitter.
Sharon spent much of her early years training to be a dancer (She started in ballet, but as she reach adolescence her changing body made that unlikely). But in her training almost all boy dancers were gay. She would find all the controversies now over LGBTQ, and whatever else they now add, as humorous and a little odd. When she was in charge of a dance troop she would hire and fire them on their abilities, attitude, and work ethic. Their life style was usually a non-issue (that was not always the case as her autobiography will show). It has become an issue now only to divide us further. No one wishes harm to anyone, at least one shouldn’t. But now these unusual life styles are being shoved in our faces, and forced on our youngest school children. Again this is bitter, and will serve neither side well.
It is sweet that she does not have to deal with these things. She is in the realm of our Lord, a realm of immense love, for it basks in the very presence of our Lord God. That is sweet. What is also sweet is that we are called upon to announce, proclaim, share, imitate, and manifest this love. A wondrous future that God has set before us, and one that this embittered world so needs to hear.
That is the story of Jesus and His love! This is the only thing that will heal the divisions, prevail over the bitterness, restore the sweetness of common sense, and bring wisdom to this mindless, and dystopian world. We are in a dark place now, and only He who is the Balm of Gideon, the Rose of Sharon, the Healing of the Nations can change things. And that is sweet news! It is sweet to speak truth to all ugliness and remind us of the hope that ends all such bitterness. Paul speaks of his “crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will give him on that day, and not only him but also to all who have loved His appearing“ (2 Tim.4:8). Think of that, like Paul we will be crowned on that day by the Lord Himself. Which makes all this darkness and silliness (and it is silly) as the nothing it is.
Just how sweet is the love of Jesus,
Thomas Randolf Wyatt
