Reckoning

My husband's great Aunt Belle was visiting us when we lived in NW Kentucky along the border with Illinois and Indiana. She was a missionary in India and had begun a children's home for the children of leper parents. (She and her brother John Taylor and his wife Elizabeth began these homes.) Aunt Belle was traveling across country by bus and enjoyed every minute of the trip because she could tell people about Jesus.
As we drove from one of our churches to another she looked out at what were very modest homes and farmland and she said, "There will be a reckoning." It was not a loud proclamation but it had the force of thunder in its meaning.
She had seen and lived in the world where there was not such personal abundance. Where individuals worked for a little bread not so much that it had to be discarded. She shared all she had with everyone she met and then was ready to provide for their spiritual need as well. She was a beautiful woman in every way, every way that mattered. Her love for Jesus and her daily walk with him inspires me still.
And her words, There will be a reckoning, echo in my heart when I hear of injustice, or see poverty, or look at the abundance in which I live and realize that what is really important to me are not the treasures of my own choosing but the love that I have received and continue to recieve from God.
Her words also bring me comfort as well as challenge. Comfort because when there is injustice and it looks like someone is 'getting away with' something I hear her words. There will be a reckoning... Not of my own doing but of God's plan.
This is the scripture reading from the PCUSA website the evening psalm NRSV
vening: Psalms 28:1-9
1To you, O LORD, I call;
my rock, do not refuse to hear me,
for if you are silent to me,
I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
2Hear the voice of my supplication,
as I cry to you for help,
as I lift up my hands
towards your most holy sanctuary.
3Do not drag me away with the wicked,
with those who are workers of evil,
who speak peace with their neighbours,
while mischief is in their hearts.
4Repay them according to their work,
and according to the evil of their deeds;
repay them according to the work of their hands;
render them their due reward.
5Because they do not regard the works of the LORD,
or the work of his hands,
he will break them down and build them up no more.
6Blessed be the LORD,
for he has heard the sound of my pleadings.
7The LORD is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts;
so I am helped, and my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.
8The LORD is the strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his anointed.
9O save your people, and bless your heritage;
be their shepherd, and carry them for ever.


thanks Be to God
Bobbie McGarey
@2004