Cut-to-the-Chase and the Only Safe Place
You will marry — or you’re married to — an opposite. Not in lifestyle (you’re alike there), but in personality — big time! It’s so important for a married couple to realize this that we’ve dedicated a chapter to it in our book — our signature chapter — Differences.
For instance, my wife’s a cut-to-the-chase, bottom-line person. I’m the opposite. When I reached my 70th birthday, Mimi pointed out that according to the Bible I was out of warranty — you know, three score and ten? (Check it out in Psalm 90:10.) The morning I awoke on my 35th birthday Mimi said, “Happy birthday, Sweetie, you’re half dead.” I call that bottom line thinking. Well, I’m going out of character in the words I write here. These are bottom line words.
On our 40th Anniversary we took a cruise to Bermuda. I can remember only two keepsake things we brought back from that wonderful trip. One, a strikingly beautiful porcelain bowl which turned out to be — of all things — a bed pan. Having, with that identity, lost its luster it now sits up — way up — on top of our kitchen cabinet. The other thing is a photo. At 6:00 a.m. on a cool June morning in 1998, as our big ship slipped quietly beneath the Brooklyn Bridge headed for home port, I, alone, on a deck bereft of another soul — snapped a picture. I remember the moment vividly. The sun having not yet broken the horizon glowed behind the New York City skyline creating a breathtaking silhouette of the Empire State Building, skyscrapers, hotels, a church, and, as you may have guessed, The World Trade Center Twin Towers. The Towers were dramatically prominent. They easily stole the show. Now they’re gone.
It was a fortunate shot. I didn’t realize it until that unfortunate day 9/11 — a day not unlike the present day of COVID-19. The pandemic has brought us again to a point of pandemonium. That photo, after gaining its new identity, became special. So special that in my oil painting efforts I’ve just completed a painting of that scene — the Towers jutting high into the misty terracotta sky while the sun’s rays bursting from behind them filter through the fog rising from the waters below. The fog — yes, the fog! I plan to somehow paint the words of a Scripture passage superimposed upon that fog. It’s a passage that a famous pastor, Peter Marshall, once used in a sermon. He ended his sermon this way:
An old legend tells of a merchant in Bagdad who one day sent his servant to the market. The servant came back, white and trembling. “I was jostled by a woman,” he said. “I turned and saw that it was Death. She made a threatening gesture, so, Master, please lend me your horse for I must hasten away to avoid her. I will ride to Samarra and there I will hide, and Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse and the servant galloped away in great haste. Later the merchant went down to the market place and saw Death standing in the crowd. “Why did you threaten my servant this morning and frighten him?” he asked. She interrupted, “I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”
Peter Marshall then reminded his audience “Each of us has an appointment in Samarra. But that is cause for rejoicing — not for fear, provided we have put our trust in Him who alone holds the keys of life and death.” No matter what the impending danger — COVID-19 or whatever, the only safe place is in Him who will never let us down even when one day He takes us up. Oh, that passage Peter Marshall used and the one I’m painting?
“Your life is like the morning fog — it’s here a little while, and then it’s gone” (James 4:14).
