Holding Our Arms

March has been quite a hard month.  While there was a wonderful week of vacation with my family in California and a couple of days of fun for me with friends in DC, the reality of the end of M's time here at the University of Chicago is sneaking up rather quickly. 

Most of our days have been spent applying to jobs, networking as much as possible and lamenting the current federal budget problems and general economic climate.  Now is not the easiest time to be looking for a job, to say the least.

And so we have prayed.  And cried, and prayed and cried.  We are asking God to continue His faithfulness to us, and to remind us of His goodness.  And yet even in this, we must know that His goodness does not mean that M will get a job that he loves or that he'll get a job at all.  Of course that is what we hope for, but God's goodness to us does not always manifest itself in the way that we would like it.  I know too many people who love the Lord with all their heart and yet have no job, no home or no family.  God's goodness is that we are allowed to be worshipers of Him, to know Him more and to be in His presence, not that we have a nice job and a big family.

Last week, I hit a wall.  Exhausted, overwhelmed and feeling discouraged, I asked friends to pray for me, even as I felt that I could no longer pray for myself.  And in that time, God reminded me of this passage:

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses' hand grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it.  Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set.  And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the sword. (Exodus 17:11-13)

I am so thankful to those who have been holding up our arms, even as we are exhausted and feel like we can't do this anymore.  I'm so thankful for a stone to sit on and the arms that have taken the weight off my arms.  And I am so thankful that as the sun sets, we are assured victory, even as we do not know exactly what that victory will look like. 

History

M and I have recently gotten in to learning more about our families and their history.  As a student of history, what others before us have experienced has always been fascinating to me; sometimes when I think about what my grandparents or great-grandparents saw in their life, I'm blown away by how privileged we are to live the life that we live.

In this case, I'm particularly thankful I wasn't around in the time of M's great uncle.

Robert Laird, Jr. was 24 when he was (according to the Pensacola Journal) murdered by a mad Italian barber (who may or may not have been in the mafia.)  According to reports, Robert had accused said Italian barber of shaving him out of a dirty cup.  Holding a grudge, a week later, the barber murdered him.

Oh, but it gets more bizarre.

Arrested a few weeks after the murder, the Italian barber set himself on fire, placing a burning blanket over his head and burning himself from the waist up.  He did not actually succeed in ending his life, however, and suffered on another three months before succumbing to complications from his wounds.

Ah, family history.