Today held contrasts--a tragedy and a time of peace.
A man who jumped from a bridge--and a man who tuned our piano and shared delightful stories.
I got to experience the peace of the piano tuner while Jonathan was waiting out a tragedy played out right under the eyes of the excavator driver who was on his way to work for Jonathan. Jonathan texted me, having found out that the guy was delayed near I-25 south of town because a man was up on the bridge over the interstate, threatening to jump off. The excavator guy had come up behind the man's vehicle and couldn't pass around it to cross the bridge spanning the interstate, so he went to the man to ask him to move his vehicle, only to be told, "No! I'm going to jump off the bridge!" Other people started gathering and calling 911 while the man danced about on the bridge, watching traffic below for a chance to drop in front of someone. He would almost jump and then lose his nerve and back off. Sheriffs began to arrive as well, about six of them, Jonathan said, trying to persuade the man to get away from the guard rail. Instead, he ended up jumping anyway. Jonathan's excavator driver heard him hit the pavement. Thankfully the sheriff's had stopped traffic, but our guy did not want to look. It must have been anguish to not have been able to save him. A sheriff said later that the man who had jumped was still alive but not moving much as can only be imagined.
Before reading on, would you join your heart in prayer for this hopeless man and for those who watched this tragedy unfold?
Jesus, I bring to you the Man Who Jumped from the Bridge. You know his name and You care for him as much as You care for any of us. Please reach out to him, give him a fresh lease on life, may a chaplain in the hospital or someone come and reach out to him with Your love and hope. And also please remember Jonathan's excavator guy. I don't know his name either, but he could not bear to look after the man jumped, and I can only imagine the anguish of not being able to save him. There were also all those parked on the interstate watching it unfold. These horrifying incidents shake us, but we pray it would turn someone's heart to You! We know this is the fault of Satan and sin, and You are not to blame. You are always reaching out with love and forgiveness to anyone who will turn to You. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Meanwhile at home, Roger was tuning our piano. He is a Christian who loves to come out to tune our piano in the country. He was telling me about his grandfather from Sweden who built a house on Long Island, and about his seven children, twenty-two grandchildren, and a several great grandchildren!
When he was done tuning the piano, he sat for a long time just talking from his heart about memories and about Christian, family-run businesses around town and south of town.
One of those businesses is Gooseberry Patch, a restaurant he and his wife enjoy. It sells gooseberry pies, and they would purchase pies to share with neighbors and friends during the shutdown.
Sorry this one pictured is not a gooseberry pie, just a rhubarb pie that theRose made recently, but it works.
Roger, the piano tuner, said he sensed the peace and love in our home out here.
"Sometimes," he said, "there are things in the family and relatives that aren't good."
And sometimes, he pondered, good people die and the evil people are still living.
He said he struggled over Saddam Hussein and over Obsama bin Laden when our nation was trying to get them. Why did God let them live and then a good man have to die who was creating family-friendly movies that his home-schooled kids could watch?
Then one day as he was complaining to God about it, he heard, with his heart, God's voice, like a good Jew, he laughed, answering his questions with a question. "If I took Saddam Hussein," God said, "where would he be?"
Roger knew where Saddam would be. And later he pondered the significance of the verse in Lamentations about how the Lord's mercies are new every morning.
"Every morning God was talking to Saddam Hussein," he said. "And every day when Saddam would reject Him, He would come back the next morning."
How interesting! I thought. I wonder how many people, like Roger, God was teaching to pray for our enemies instead of hating them?
It was a comfort to me to sit and listen to this man share his heart while sitting on the piano bench, about how God has taught him to love, however imperfectly, and to pray for our enemies.
It was a comfort to sit there and listen to him talking about his Swedish grandfather, about a man who shared the gospel in cowboy language, and about gooseberry pies!
All this while a man hovered between life and death on the interstate highway under a bridge down south.
What a difference the gospel makes!
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