{"id":602,"date":"2012-01-12T23:10:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T04:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/?p=602"},"modified":"2016-11-02T23:12:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T04:12:43","slug":"i-fall-down-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/12\/i-fall-down-again\/","title":{"rendered":"I Fall Down&#8230; Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">In the post-Christmas shopping days I went to the store like many others. Was going thru the aisles just like the other customers in the store. Saw a lady leaning on her basket, looked distressed. She was older, slight- seemed like she\u2019d blow away like a feather if you moved by her too fast.\u00a0 I paused about a third of the way down the aisle and looked back- she was still standing there. Another lady came up to her and talked with her as if she knew her.\u00a0 I continued on to finish my shopping and went to the check out. I found myself behind the same lady, who was by now in a wheelchair cart. There were three employees standing by, anxiously watching her. She was on the phone talking with someone quietly. She finished her call as the clerk was completing ringing up the lady\u2019s purchase. By this time she was tearful, apologetic, reassured the clerks repeatedly that she was ok, that she was fine to go to her car and wait for someone to drive her home. An employee called for another employee to accompany the lady to her car. Then the clerks were apologizing to me for taking longer than they felt necessary to serve me.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">Now, all this time I had the feeling that I should be concerned in some way for the poor lady who was in distress.\u00a0 Why had I happened down the aisle she had been on? Why did I notice her distress? Why did I happen to get in line behind her?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">Should I have stopped to enquire as to her well-being?\u00a0 Should I have offered to accompany her to her car? Should I have offered to drive her home?\u00a0 And were all of these questions that arose a nudge by the Holy Spirit? \u00a0I\u2019m not sure- but I feel like they were.\u00a0 Either that or it\u2019s an over aware sense of responsibility for others who are not well because I\u2019m a nurse.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">The argument, if there is one, could been argued from several directions\u2026. And that\u2019s what\u2019s put me in a quandary.\u00a0 Do I justify my actions to myself by using the latter statement and does that absolve me of accountability before God? Or, do I admit, which is what I think is true, that the Holy Spirit wanted me to step into the situation?\u00a0 The guilt, the sheepishness that I feel, is it a feeling or is it guilt?\u00a0 Or is it a missed opportunity to serve another?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">Mordecai was right when he told Esther:\u00a0<em>\u201cDo not think that because you are in the king\u2019s house you alone of the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father\u2019s family will perish.\u00a0 And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?\u201d Esther 4:13-14<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0Whenever, I have refused the Holy Spirit and caused him Sorrow, these verses come to mind like the headlines of a newspaper. God indeed raised up others to serve the lady. She was cared for, but not by me. What blessing did I miss again by not being obedient?\u00a0 I will never know.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019d like to think that I will not miss the next cue by the Holy Spirit; however, I do know myself well enough to realize that it\u2019s a real possibility.\u00a0 What is it that makes me shrink back from some risks that I feel I was meant to take?\u00a0 And, what will it take to get me to step out into the uncomfortable (for me) unknown when I do step out at other times?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0Don\u2019t have an answer yet defined for this. But I\u2019ll stop with this quote from Beth Moore- &#8220;Sometimes you can tell the degree to which we\u2019re trying to be God over our own lives, by the degree of heaviness in our hearts, because it is a load to take on God\u2019s job.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the post-Christmas shopping days I went to the store like many others. Was going thru the aisles just like the other customers in the store. Saw a lady leaning on her basket, looked distressed. She was older, slight- seemed like she\u2019d blow away like a feather if you moved by her too fast.\u00a0 I &#8230; <a title=\"I Fall Down&#8230; Again\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/12\/i-fall-down-again\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about I Fall Down&#8230; Again\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[277],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-conviction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}