Rush Our

AMOS’S ASSIGNMENT

The phone rings. Oh my! Sometimes a phone call can either bring great joy or great sorrow through the curtains of a person's heart. This call came during what was a seemingly ordinary, full day in our lives in Gilgal, Colorado. It was a bright fall afternoon. My wife Esther and I had worked all day and were preparing for dinner. Our two young daughters were busy talking in the other room. Windows open, fresh evening air coming into our now cool house. Dinner in the making, again, the phone continues to ring. “Honey, get the phone,” I said, “Ok, Ok,” Esther replies. Then she says, “Hello? What's wrong! What’s wrong?” I can tell by Esther's voice something is so terribly wrong! “I don’t understand you,” she briefly continues.

“It’s Priscilla.” Esther whispers to me that something is wrong and that she is hysterical. Priscilla is Esther’s best friend of about twenty years.

Hearing the concern in Esther’s voice, I stopped everything I was doing, and listed carefully to Esther’s every word. She lowers the phone while covering the front of it with her hand.

I can tell she is having difficulty telling me what must have just happened.

Her eyes begin to tear up, she is trying to speak but no sound is coming out. “What is it?” I ask. Esther’s eyes are now speaking louder than her words ever could. There was emptiness, a glass chalice with no contents.

What she is about to say is not going to be good, I thought. She lifts her left hand and signals for me to wait a minute so she can gain her composure. Or is she hesitating?

If this terrible news was about one of our immediate family members she would not be so hesitant in telling me. Then I slowly sit down anticipating the fearful unknown. Slowly, Esther says, “Jeremiah… It’s Amos. He… he just killed Emma, then himself.”

When she finally said this, my heart ached. I winced in sheer pain as if being pierced by an arrow. Then the tears came streaming down my face. Esther gently embraced me while we both continued to cry.

At this very instant, Jeremiah knew what the essence of LOVE is. To have invested time and emotion with another. To have shared at the dinner table of compassion. To have a firsthand understanding of Amos’s relevance.

Jeremiah experienced LOVE, while discerning God’s grace and mercy in a measure of time. Jeremiah was reassured that this was a clear, concise choice on Amos’s part. Although his spirit was clawing from the pit of despair at that moment, he did choose. His grip on the hand of free will was unmistakable and unwavering.

Isn't it amazing how we hear about death, suicide, tragic events and yet we have become somewhat numb to these events? Except when they hit close to home.

It was so surreal! Amos was my friend. Priscilla was Esther’s best friend who had worked side- by-side with Emma for years. She was not only a co-worker, but had become a great friend to Priscilla, which is Esther's best friend.

The details of the murder/suicide came out later and explained that Amos had come home for the evening, had a gun in hand, took his wife Emma into the bedroom and shot her. He then shot himself with one of his two young children playing in the other room.

This young couple, both hard working individuals with good incomes, their own home, children, and they both had family members in town.

Amos had multiple brothers and sisters, as well as church members who he could have gone to for help or counseling.

This is not the first or the last suicide that my family would hear about. It is but a grim reminder of mankind's choices and the ability to do terrible things in spite of when God Himself is trying to speak to him.

This place of hidden struggle is where a human being sometimes finds himself drifting through. Life may have you there now or has taken you there at some time.

The gap that we as humans often put between ourselves and God often seems insurmountable. Our ability to avoid God’s LOVE, or not recognize it, seems to be a pretty common trend. Mankind’s (thought) life, can either be a place of peace, confidence and hope or it can be a haven for the worst of thoughts and actions.

This gap or distance that humanity places between them and God is quite contrary to what the bible says about God and his presence in your life.

See if this is how you see God in your life.

“O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up.

You know my every thought when far away. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.

You both precede and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me know! I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence!

If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, *you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night-but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are both alike to you. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalms 139:1-13)