Inconvenient people

“As surely as I valued your life today, so may the Lord value my life and deliver me from all trouble.” 1 Samuel 26:24 NIV

I’ve been thinking about people becoming inconvenient. We all do. As I get older, I remember both of my parents becoming inconvenient. My mom had been through the ringer with Parkinson’s disease. By the end of her life my dad had converted the entire upstairs of the house into a hospital setting. The hospital bed sat where the dining room table had been. Oxygen tanks, lifts and other various equipment filled the entire space. There was nothing convenient about it, but a life was present and the life would be honored.

I was the first to find my mom after she went home. When I woke my dad up and told him he just said “I’m happy for her.” I will never forget it. She had never done anything to deserve the fate and my dad had made choices to love her until death parted them and he really did that. It was not convenient. It was life.

It was not long after she died that he started slipping. His mind really had not calculated exactly what life would be like without her. It was a big space to fill. Betty Lou was special.

At first, he got mad. He knew his brain was fading and he was aware as it left at first. He thought he knew what was coming and he didn’t like the sound of it. Fortunately, he did not realize just how bad he would get. I lived four hours away and did not see the daily regression. Seeing him only occasionally you could see it in greater measure. My brother and sisters took the brunt of it, and it packed a heavy blow. Literally every detail of his life got inconvenient, but it was life.

I don’t worry about it a lot, but I think about it. This past week I was looking to buy some short-term disability insurance, just in case. I priced it from two friends who sell it. One of them asked me during the conversation “Do you think you need it?” I said I probably need it. He then asked, “Why did you start writing?” He knew the prospect of a gray brain is the simple answer. I kind of hate it when he asks that kind of crap because he is usually right. I don’t want to become inconvenient. Maybe it is because I know the people who would be the most burdened if I do. It is ironic, but the very people I want to serve and love would be the most impacted if my brain leaves.

I was catching up on the news today and got bombarded by the inconvenience being reported. We debate policy like people are disposable. They are not. The world does not want us to include each other in the solutions to issues. The world wants lines drawn. The world wants division. The world wants us to dismiss the inconvenient to arrive where we want to be mentally or physically or socially. The world actually wants us to think that it is possible for us to be the solution.

Inconvenient? Govern it away by the literal millions. Vulnerable? Shoot it to make a statement of evil and watch as the world blindly tries to reason with the motive of hate and evil. Disagree about an issue, it is easier to eviscerate an opponent than it is to love one, but that’s life.

Does the news bother you enough to do something inconvenient? I am feeling convicted by that tonight. I don’t know what the right answer is.

If you are a believer, are we called to preach the Word of Life in the middle of this mess we live in? Why is it that one attractive course of action is to head for the hills and ride it out in isolation? Where is that in the bible? If you find it, please let me know.

Challenge: Knowing the difference between sitting in silence waiting for Jesus and the conviction God can place on our heart to stand up and love all life in a world that does not value it.

Rick Claiborn