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November 9, 2023November 9, 2023

They come to most people who’ve lived life awhile. Periods we label roller-coaster seasons.With jet lag and the landscapes of Africa behind us Ann and I pondered how life might look going forward. Her mother’s passing from this world was surely nearing as leukemia would bring its final assault. My father’s homegoing, too, drew closer in by the day.
Meanwhile, the peal of wedding bells lay immediately ahead.

My wife, smiling broadly, yielded a sigh of happy relief. The wedding gown project for her firstborn had come together well. How beautiful Julie was as she took my arm at the head of the church’s center aisle.
“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” Darrell Stinnett – the groom’s father and officiating minister – smiled my direction. The two weeks since landing at Will Rogers International had raced by. In mere minutes I would enter a long-established fraternity – father of a bride.

Returning to Okmulgee, the land of my upbringing, I resumed my vigil at Dad’s bedside. His breathing grew more labored. One late morning I stepped outdoors and took in the surroundings of the old home place. My son’s voice came from the front porch, “Dad, can you come?”
Slipping in to pay a visit at his grandfather’s bedside, Scott was quick to witness the change. It was September 1, 1992, exactly a month short of his 80th birthday. Grandpa was gone.

Crossing life’s final divide – the temporal to the hereafter – Dad had run his course. And finished well.
“To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”.*
© 2023 Jerry Lout *2 Corinthians 5:8

August 22, 2017August 28, 2017

Psalm Power

Passing on foot through African wildlife terrain is not advised, especially if unarmed. More especially if unarmed and alone – and after dark.

Try as I may, I couldn’t shut my mind to a growing parade of frightful images. . . a Cape Buffalo lifting its’ great head, sniffing the night air to catch my scent. . . a deadly viper lying unseen on the darkened sand before me. More fearful than these I imagined a Leopard. Strong. Ferocious. A chill passed through me “seeing her” – mid-flight in her leap my direction this moment, her great claws and teeth bared.

Though I was walking fast I knew my heart-beats were outpacing my footsteps. This panic must stop. Get control, Jerry.

. . .Call up Scripture.

The thought came strongly yet in calmness – as from a voice inside bearing an authoritative, consoling tone. Pressing my mind to respond, I willed myself past the taunting images and began mentally scrolling phrases, long at home in my memory. I paused at the great hymnal of Scripture – the Psalms.

Yes, I breathed, Psalm 91. It was a favorite. . . and clearly suited to the moment.

Psalm 91. Long anchored in history as a rich piece of literature. I needed Psalm 91. Needed heart messages found there. Crisp, Bold. Assuring. My lips framed familiar words one by one and my mouth found its voice. Keeping up my brisk pace, I called the phrases out toward a starry canopy above.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. . .

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. . . Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. . .

I continued my quoting, gaining courage, as if an old, half-asleep conviction were being stirred awake. Even my heartbeat seemed to be moving to a more natural rhythm . . .

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

. . .thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

By now a boldness had risen from somewhere, surprising me in its force. I sensed a shift in confidence.

Peace seems inadequate a term to describe the near-tangible sense of well-being that followed, settling all about me. A change had come, powerful, real. I was free of fear. Free.

Stronger than ever I voiced the next phrase of the Psalm,

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

At this I actually smiled, aware that my super-hasty march had slowed. I whispered, Thank you, Lord, You didn’t bring me to Africa to feed me to the big cats, or poison me by a cobra strike. Thank you!

Moments passed quickly. I navigated the river’s long bend – still sweetly calmed – and soon, with near giddiness, I spotted the object I had pursued for such a long time it seemed – a small vehicle of uniquely German design.

The bug sat well out of the riverbed, its’ headlights revealing the murram track ahead. Pointing home.

Because he hath set his love upon me. . He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.

July 18, 2018

The Unknowing

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience,

but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to

rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

***

What awaits me down there, really?

A few minutes earlier, as the great aircraft began its descent to Nairobi’s mile-high runway, I had drawn the Navy-blue passenger blanket away from my head and shoulders. The covering had served to conceal a stubborn trickle of tears that had persisted these past minutes.

Inside I knew I had not come to this place entirely on my own. . . knew that God had journeyed together with Ann and me from the outset along this sudden bewildering trail, a pathway ending who knew where? Still, I could not recall in my lifetime bearing such a sense of ‘aloneness’. I sat in a cloister of fellow passengers gazing out the plane’s window onto a land beneath of fifteen million inhabitants. It didn’t matter. Alone is alone regardless the surroundings.

Lord, I do need your presence. Be near me these coming days.

My tired mind went over again the sequence of events these past weeks.

So what is the missing piece, where is the accusation, what is the scandal. . . Is there one? Why would I be disinvited to serve in this land, among this people we’ve grown to care so deeply about?

The grand ball of sun had for an hour been inching its way above the Indian Ocean 200 miles eastward, its revealing light stretching inland, drenching the Nairobi Game Park that lay near the capital city’s airport at the city’s edge. I well knew that giraffe, zebra, antelope and the occasional pride of lion had long wakened to the sun’s encroaching blaze, their animal senses already on high alert. Knew this even as I detected my own protective instincts rising.

Certainly, as with all long-term residents coming from an outside culture, I had made my share of goofs, mis-pronouncing language, klutzy embarrassments that locals regularly let slide. In the end though, search for it as I might, no complaint of my violating any cultural, moral or religious code came to my mind.

Thuh-THUMP. The plane touched down and her sturdy tires soon moved us toward the mobile stairways for our exit.

I was “home”, where I had first landed a dozen years ago. But this was different. . . the first time in my overseas travels without my dear wife. She and our children, thousands of miles distance, would await word of my safe arrival. I felt the sense of aloneness threaten me again. Mercifully, a flight attendant’s voice sounded in a microphone.

“Please take care leaving, ladies and gentlemen, that you remember your carry-on items. And mind the steps as you move down to the tarmac.”

Stepping outside and onto the stairway platform, carry-on in hand, I paused a moment and drank in the Africa air. Then, trailing a chatty group of tourists toward the tarmac below I stole a further look across the Kenya landscape.

How much longer will this be our home?