“He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.” Psalm 147:4
I stood there, halfway up, and realized not only that once upon a time I could do that too, but also that I can’t anymore. I stood there stunned, realizing that I felt the way my grandpa must have sometime in his life. But now, my grandpa is long gone and I am he.
I have a cold, and it’s nothing to shake a hanky at. It started way down in my lungs about a week ago, fetching a cough I’ve been battling since. Yesterday, enemy forces climbed up my windpipe and took my sinuses hostage. This morning I awoke with a mouthful of fine, dry sand.
We haven’t heard from our son in more than a week. We hope he’s doing well, all alone so far away. We pray he’ll find some friends, some folks with whom he can be at home. We want him in church. We’re not sure of much, and haven’t been for several years.
This, my 36th year of teaching, hasn’t started out with joy. For the first time in all those years, I believe I’d move if the right opportunity came up. But I’m nearly 60 so who on earth will invest in someone who’s barely going to be get into the parking lot before leaving for retirement? Makes me feel dismal.
I’m facing a ton of student papers today, but I have to get them read. I’ve had them far too long. My students have every right to roll their eyes when I come into class without them.
My wife’s cholesterol spiked. She never knew she had a problem until the good doctor called a week ago after reading her test. “You better start some pills,” he told her, wrote out the prescription. She’s been on them since.
Her mother’s life is precarious, and in many ways she’d rather be gone. She’s not morbid about it, nor deeply depressed, but has little sense of her own use on this wintering earth. She thinks she’s a burden. Last week there was a bout with an ambulance. She vows, never again.
There are probably more laments, if I would listen to the dark voices.
To imagine that God knows that whole laundry list is beyond belief. To believe he loves me despite my curmudgeonliness, my insistent listing of my own problems as first and foremost in the universe, is absurd. To imagine that somewhere in that computer mind of his he’s drawn a divine bead on just me is incomprehensible, not only because of long list my ills but even more so because millions and billions of mes populate this world of his.
But out here in the country, I’m sure I see the night sky better than most Americans. I know how countless many stars there are above—at least I know better than most city-dwellers.
The comfort of Psalm 147:4 is that he knows them all, every one, knows what’s happening in their air space. Our great joy is that “he calls them each by name.”
He knows our aches and pains—so many of them too.
That’s really unbelievable, isn’t it? Only by faith do I know I’m not just baying at the moon or whistling in the dark.
~*~*~*~*~
*from Sixty at Sixty.
2 comments:
Dr. Schaap, I just read your blog, "Sunday Morning Meds-Each and Every One." I thought the story was about you and maybe it was about you but when the line said he was 60, I am assuming you are 73 or 74. I picked up a copy of your book, Our Family Album: The Unfinished Story of the Christians Reformed Church. It gave me historical details which has been most helpful. My wife's grandfather was Rev. Harry Bultema. You were fair in your assessment on the stir he caused in the CRC denomination. I wrote a short biography on Bultema and I addressed the Bultema Case as it was called. this also included his preaching, writing, radio ministries until his death in 1952 and what happened since then. A library was named after him, The Bultema Memorial Library on the campus of Grace Christian University. On Tuesdays I work in the archives there, typing Bultema longhand manuscripts in English. The English has been going well but the Dutch is limited. I finished one Dutch booklet which was translated but never made available as a readable booklet in English and one Dutch booklet scanned for editing. My Dutch and German are limited and google is a poor substitute, but for now google has been used. So in my work on Bultema's material, I have saturated myself with Reformed theology and the CRC's Three Forms of Unity. I am working on two other Bultema papers, Bultema and Premillennialism and Bultema and Calvinism.
Then another item. I went to Pella, Iowa for the H. P. Scholte Sesquicentennial Conference in 2018. This is where I met up with Dr. Douglas Firth Anderson. His wife is a sister to Dave Terpstra. Last Saturday was Terpstra's funeral and I was hoping to meet up with Doug.
Anyway I was hoping to meet up with you, but I see there are a few miles between us. Keep up the good word in your writing and teaching.
A final point, Bultema wrote two volumes on H. P. Scholte. This is in Dutch and it is longhand. I have not attempted to type this as of yet, but it needs to be done. This may have been written during Bultema's pastorate in Peoria, Iowa at the First Church from 1912-1916. I live in the greater Grand Rapids area and I have asked around. I go to the archives at the Hekman library on the campus of Calvin University, but those who can and do translate Dutch to English have other important works. Maybe you know someone who would have time to translate this If you choose to reply, this is my email: krthompsons@gmail.com Thanks, Kendall Thompson
Kendall, Thanks for the long note. You have an fascinating job and strong familial heritage. I wish I knew some Dutch folks willing to do some translating, but, as you can guess, there are fewer and fewer folks willing and able to do such things with every passing year. My own estimation would be that you stand a better chance looking in the Netherlands, where there may well be some significant interest in the things you're doing. Will may be able to help you (at Calvin's archives) on that score. Sunday's meditation, by the way, is fifteen years old. You were right, last week was my 74th birthday.
I see Doug Anderson regularly. I'll give your greetings to him, possibly even today.
By the way, my grandfather and your grandfather (in-law) may well have been contemporaries. Don't know if you read my blog with any regularity, but if you just happened on it yesterday, you might be interested in some talk about my grandpa--both here ( http://siouxlander.blogspot.com/2022/02/respecting-mystery.html ) and on the day before.
JCS
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