More Than Stone

Ok, so I have 3 people that check my blog and it has summarily inspired me to post something witty and clever. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything. An update will have to suffice. I am currently going back to school for nursing and am having to retake all my sciences since it has been longer than 5 years since I was last in college. “5 years!”, you say, “How could that be? You couldn’t be a day over 25”. Ahh, my friends, alas, I am a bit over 25.

As I age, (ever so gracefully), the aforementioned sciences are kicking my young looking behind. Frankly, if I were to make a solution containing 33.6 g KCl with a total volume of 250 mL, I don’t care what the molarity of the solution is. Perhaps you do. If you find that question intriguing, maybe you’d like to take my final for me. My email contact info is below. Amidst my sciences, I am also taking a survey of the Old Testament and wish I had more brain power to dedicate to this class, as I’m really enjoying it. In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with perhaps the most blasphemous lament in the Scriptures. I find the honest humanity of Jeremiah in this text absolutely intriguing.

A brief history: Israel had already been crushed. Judah was on the way out with the Babylonian storm clouds right over the horizon. Yahweh has demanded that Jeremiah speak truth to Judah, who has her head in the sand. Now his friends want to kill him for raining on their parade. So, Jeremiah, takes Yahweh to task. Amidst his railing against God, Jeremiah praises God, then promptly wonders why God didn’t just kill Jeremiah in the womb. I love the raw nature of this lament.

Jer 20:7 O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me.
Jer 20:8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.
Jer 20:9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
Jer 20:10 For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.”
Jer 20:11 But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.
Jer 20:12 O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.
Jer 20:13 Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Jer 20:14 Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed!
Jer 20:15 Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad.
Jer 20:16 Let that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon,
Jer 20:17 because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great.
Jer 20:18 Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?