Who knows? We shall see...

Having just posted a short entry, the words start to come it seems.

An acquaintance of mine has 3 children. The oldest of which has been making, shall we say, “poor life choices” lately. His actions contradict what he says he wants his life goals to be. Very recently this young man was attacked and hospitalized while at a party in the wee hours of the morning.  

And as one does I reflect on how I would be in this man’s shoes with a kid who was making stupid choices and now hospitalized. I have two words of wisdom, one from my father-in-law and one from my dad. The advice from the former being “Nothing good happens out of bed after midnight”, the later being “we choose the price we pay”. I am very thankful to God that this young man has not lost his life do to his choices and I have prayed that he will learn something from them. While I don’t know the exact circumstances of what happened, this young man choose to be at a party he probably shouldn’t have been at and his actions most likely contributed to his injuries, I don’t believe he was rolled for his wallet during a party.

While I never wish harm on anyone (that isn’t a child predator or abuser of women) and have no wish to commit violent acts myself, I do miss the time when two guys had a “disagreement” over something they could take it outside and deal with it and not have to worry about the other guys “boys” jumping him from behind or having the disagreement escalate to edged weapons or being shot.

I remember my own school days when a new kid came into our class after being expelled from another school and started picking on me. To my credit (and the credit of a proper upbringing) I didn’t engage him in his behavior. “Mike” wouldn’t let it go and made it his mission to illicit some type of response I guess, he only really knows why he was doing it. One rainy lunch period in our unsupervised classroom, he finally got a response from me and I threw him across half the class into a wall. Before I knew what I was doing I was upon him, with the scruff of his collar in my left hand and an immediate response to further hostility in my right. I told him that whatever problem we had between us was finished and I resumed my drawing (as I did more of that then actual school work). We were then the best of friends for the rest of the school year. This is how guys deal with things, or at least, how we used to deal with things before we gave our personal responsibility and liberty over to our protectionist culture.

So I sit wondering how to tell my acquaintance that I am praying for him and his family, and I can’t write the words “I’m glad he’s ok”. Another story from my dad comes into my mind, it’s an old Chinese parable that I’m going to leave you with, I then hope you know why I just let him know that all I could write to him was “I’m praying for you and your family”

A farmer’s horse runs away, and while he is out looking for his horse the farmer comes across his neighbor and says “it’s too bad that your horse ran away”. The farmer replies “who knows? We shall see”. The next day the horse shows back up and the neighbor says to the farmer “that’s great! Your horse came back” and the farmer replies “Who knows? We shall see.” The next day the farmer’s son is riding the same horse and gets thrown from it, breaking his arm. Once the boy is attended to and resting, the neighbor says to the farmer, “that’s too bad about your boy” and the farmer responds “Who knows? We shall see.” Later that week the province that the farmer is living in goes to war against the next province over and the farmer’s son cannot serve in the military because his arm is broken. The neighbor comes over and says to the farmer “That’s great news that your son doesn’t have to go fight!” and the farmer replies “Who knows? We shall see.”

Only God knows the end game and he uses us in ways that we often don’t foresee and will probably never know in what way we influence those around us. Good can be used for bad and bad can be used for good.

But who knows? Not me, I’m just a humble sheepdog trying to protect what members of the flock that I can.