{"id":99,"date":"2012-08-16T05:24:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T11:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.195.124.95\/~redletu4\/just-give-me-a-sign\/"},"modified":"2012-08-16T05:24:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T11:24:00","slug":"just-give-me-a-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davidrupert\/just-give-me-a-sign\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Give Me a Sign"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I stood in the deepening dark of the night. The moon was nowhere to be seen. A thousand stars \u2013 maybe more, blinked in chaotic poetry.<\/p>\n<p>I had to absorb the news of the day \u2013 of a lifetime. Swirling in my head, there were no answers. Just questions. That awful question.<i> Why?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>I needed clear guidance, and not finely parsed words. I didn\u2019t want nuance, or philosophy. I wasn\u2019t interested in theology. I\u2019ve sat through a thousand sermons and know what the the thick Book teaches. I have heard the sage advice of the elders. The counselor\u2019s word seemed sound, but still were hollow. The words of authors bounced like penny\u2019s on the pavement.<\/p>\n<p>All of that was good. But really, at that moment, <i>I just needed a sign.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>A burning bush would have been brilliant. A spaceship with a laser beam would have been spectacular. A distant rumble. I would have even settled for a shooting star.\u00a0<i>God, just give me a sign.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>I sat on the dusty ground. There are tears. Not the manly kind that glisten in the eye but the kind that cannot be brushed away without being replaced by another, and then another, coming from reservoirs rarely tapped.<\/p>\n<p><i>Am I alone here?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/30647744@N00\/2917129508\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Lasers\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3224\/2917129508_a437b90401_m.jpg\" width=\"400\"><\/a><span>Lasers (Photo credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/30647744@N00\/2917129508\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">dmuth<\/a>)<\/span><\/span>The sign never came, and yet I eventually found the answers through strife and turmoil, prayer and supplication, doubt and fear.<\/p>\n<p>And today, the questions are different, and yet the same. My heart still hurts for family members who wander. And what can I say about the friends who have turned away, their fingers still pointing at the gaping hole in my facade?<\/p>\n<p>My soul aches for the uncertain future my childen must face. The evil in the world is running rampant, and I just don\u2019t have the answers.<\/p>\n<p>I know it\u2019s a sign a weakness, even a sign of an evil generation. But I must admit, that there are times, when I lift my head and cry out.<\/p>\n<p><i>Give us a sign.<\/i><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"https:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=75a3be2c-b60f-4241-80f6-58a55fb70b0e\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div>Please, share with a friend if you feel moved.<br>\nRead all past issues at http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davidrupert<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I stood in the deepening dark of the night. The moon was nowhere to be seen. A thousand stars \u2013 maybe more, blinked in chaotic poetry. I had to absorb the news of the day \u2013 of a lifetime. Swirling in my head, there were no answers. Just questions. That awful question. Why? I needed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,333],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burning-bush","category-give-me-a-sign"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Just Give Me a Sign<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I stood in the deepening dark of the night. The moon was nowhere to be seen. 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