Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Money News! Grumbling News! Bad and Good News!

There is varied news in our community this morning:

A gentleman and his son-in-law in the neighboring town won 1,000,000 smackeroos on the lottery yesterday. In a small town this is big, big news. Even after taxes the two men will each pocket $350,000. And, naw, I still won't go out and buy a ticket. Someone else will have to fund their winnings. (I surely do want you to know, however, that I do not begrudge this bit of good news for the winning ticket holders!)

Last night an on-going thunderstorm rumbled and mumbled and grumbled its way through the area. My coffee-cup-rain-gauge has disappeared off the deck (I think I drank coffee from it yesterday) and so I have no idea how much rain we got. But it rained...and thundered...and grumbled...all night long. Or so it seemed. I slept through most of it but remember in my mind the rumbles in the air. I must have been tired for it did not wake me up. This, too, is not bad news...although we could easily have a few days of dry weather to let the farm fields drain.

The sad news follows.

Up the road, in the city, a man is on trial for murdering a 3-year-old girl. For some reason the local paper is printing all the details of the testimony...how the parents found their little girl lying dead in her bed...what the nurse in the emergency room witnessed when she first saw the child...the extent of blood, injury, bruises, etc. It's ghastly. It's bad enough that this has happened...it's horrible that now the details are being put forth in a manner that everyone will visualize in their minds the awfulness of this child's death.

We think to ourselves...how can an adult human being do something like this to a child? How can they DO that? What is in their minds? What? What? What? My mind reels with the awfulness of it.

I shake my head and remember that sin prevails in this world. Until sin is done away with, until death is no more, there will be this kind of thing happening in this world.

May justice prevail. Now. And at the last day.

I Cor. 15:55-57
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

.

8 comments:

Glenda said...

I'm with you on the lottery business - and the sad observations of the awfulness of sin's grip on lives. I'm so glad you included the I Cor. 15 verses! Justice and victory will prevail . . . we can be sure of that!

Wish a thunderstorm would rumble and grumble here soon; it's extremely hot and dry with no relief in sight.
But God hasn't forgotten where we are!

I enjoy your bits of humor tucked into your posts . . . such as your rain gauge that you drank from yesterday! :-)

Gregg Metcalf said...

He is on His way - even so come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Debra said...

I don't like to hear all the grim deatils either.
Weird how it didn't even take long for a record of gruesome death to be recorded in Genesis.
Not a thing has changed since then.
~Debra

S. Etole said...

Mixed emotions as I read this ... as I imagine yours were when you wrote it.

Debby said...

I've never understood all the graphic details. What need have we to hear this? As if the actual crime itself is not horrible enough.

Here's what I figured out...the news has figured out that these details 'draw' people, as do the gory crime shows - CSI and the like.

My opinion? Truly, truly, I believe that exposing ourselves to such ugliness is not good. It is not good for us, and for our souls.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Bill said...

That night of thunderstorms sounds wonderful. Typically, we only get a few each summer and they are seldom as good as what you get.

Interior Alaska does better. It gets pretty hot and thunderstorms are a regular occurrence - although still seldom to the intensity that you experience down there.

The sad story is terrible. Although I am a journalist, I hate the fact that so many programs on Cable TV have turned actual murder into entertainment. It sounds like the little paper there may be following suit.

I don't know. People need to know what happened. How gruesome that explanation needs to be is another story.

John said...

It is heart breaking--the story about the little girl.

The Urban Cowboy said...

First timer here...I just don't understand, and never will or want to, how someone can bring such heart ache and pain into the world, someones life, like this. Absolutely horrid!