Surprise. It’s me again. I have not fallen off the edge of the universe.
Feeling like I have is probably the main reason for being away so long. I haven’t had the words to explain, and I don’t think I have them even now. Which is why I usually find it wisest to keep my mouth shut altogether.
But sometimes my silence offends. I project the wrong idea by clinging to my own perspective and ignoring all others’. For that, I apologize to you, my faithful Dry Ground readers.
Here’s what I have the courage to share. It’s not much, I warn you. But perhaps enough to encourage somebody else out there wading through their own muddy bog.
It’s approaching one year that my Daniel has been unemployed. This, I hope I do not have to prove, has been very unexpected. For months, we’ve hung our hopes on one job possibility after the other, with nothing coming to fruition. Anyone who has experienced that knows exactly how we feel. I do not have the words to describe it to anyone who hasn’t.
For half of this time, we’ve lived in my mother and her husband’s basement. While outrageously generous of them, it is not my home and I am sick of being there.
Through highs and lows, hopes and disappointments, bad days and good days, my Daniel and I find morsels to sustain us. God has been faithful giving us manna.
But I cannot say that I’ve allowed His joy to be my strength. And I believe that’s why my writer’s passion has been imprisoned deep in my brain for the time being. I’m dormant, waiting, hoping – some days barely.
It’s hard to defend my state, though, when I know so many other people suffer at such a greater intensity. This is another reason for not writing much publicly, because I loathe to appear ungrateful, whiney or of flimsy constitution. Again, my tendency is just to keep my mouth shut.
But here’s what I was thinking lately that sparked me to share with you all once again.
Do you know the story of Joseph? I’m sure I’ve mentioned him once or twice here, but his official story is located in Genesis, beginning with his birth in chapter 30.
Now here’s a fellow who endured some hardships, not entirely of his own making. His brothers despised him to the extent that they plotted to kill him. The oldest, with a mustard seed’s worth of sense, convinced the others to throw Joseph in a well for a little while to reconsider their intentions. Good thing, because they decided selling Joseph to the slave traders headed for Egypt would be a much better solution to the thorn in their sides. So Joseph is sold as a slave to Potipher. That turned out to be an okay gig until Mrs. Potipher decided to throw herself at him, but when Joseph refused to do her bidding he is wrongfully accused of rape. He’s sent to an Egyptian dungeon. I’ll bet that was fun. He met two other dudes in there who happened to be higher ups in Pharaoh’s staff. When one is released and one is put to death, Joseph asked the one released to remember him. Yea, that didn’t happen. The dude forgot about Joseph and the kindness he’d shown him. So Joseph had to wait longer.
Remember he’s never done anything to deserve this. He was wrongfully sold, wrongfully accused, wrongfully imprisoned, and wrongfully forgotten. If anyone in the history of man up to that point had reason to be bitter, I’d say it was Joseph. But he wasn’t. He waited and served, waited and served, waited and served.
And it paid off. Eventually the dude remembered him to Pharaoh, who in turn not only released him from the dungeon but promoted him to second in command of the entire country. Awesome for Joseph, eh?
The question I would like answered is this: on the day before he was remembered and thus released and promoted, how was Joseph feeling? What was he thinking? What was he doing? He wouldn’t have known that the next day was going to change his life for the better. His asking the cupbearer not to forget him showed Joseph’s discontent with his imprisoned circumstances. He didn’t want to be there. So we know he was not apathetic to his dismal position.
Therefore, I’d like to know, what did his conversation with God look like on the day before his rescue?
Because, Joseph, I could sure use some pointers.
Well, I won’t know the answer until I get to pester him in Heaven. In the meantime, for my own sanity, I will imagine that, even if he was crying out to God in desperate pleas, that Joseph ended his prayers that night in a faithful promise to hold on.
Just hold on.
That’s been the encouragement from most of my wonderful, Godly friends lately. And so I offer you the same for whatever you may be going through…
Just hold on.
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