A Friday Afternoon Mystery
My mom called us all into the kitchen and lined us up in front of the sink. She was holding a stack of plastic cups in her hand. They were the colorful plastic ones we kids used. "I want to know who did this, " she was borderline hysterical. I'm sure on some days she would have rather been stuck with four cannibals than with four kids under the age of twelve. "I want to know so one day when I write a book, I can put the offender's name down."
She held out the cups, and each one had a slice in it -- right down the side. Every single plastic cup in our kitchen was ruined. I will tell you now that I didn't do it. That's what I told my mom; my three siblings also denied any culpability. All of us then turned to my brother, next in birth order after me.
It was just the sort of thing he would do. He was forever trapping bugs outside and setting them loose in the house, mixing beverages in the kitchen, taking apart applicances to see how they worked, or waking up in the middle of the night to do some other forbidden thing. However, when he was accused, he went crazy! He started crying and even I believed that he didn't do it. Our sister was too little, and it seemed like it was something our other brother wouldn't do.
Mom took us to Wal-mart to pick out some new cups. Although we had something new to drink from, the mystery remained. Even now I don't really know who did it. If I had to guess, I'd say it was our younger brother. He has always believed that "revenge is a dish best served cold." I imagine he got mad at our other brother and cut the plastic cups to get him into trouble. Maybe he'll finally confess when he reads this. Who knows? It might have been a leprechaun or a disgruntled Easter Bunny.
Don't you just hate an unsolved mystery? Well, you might not, but I do. I was presented with one just this afternoon.
I went to my cubby-hole mailbox in the school office this afternoon. My box used to be at eye level, but this year it is at the very top. I'm too short to see inside, so I'm just waiting to reach in one day and feel something gross or get my hand caught in a mousetrap. There are people teaching on my hallway that would do this to me. In fact, I probably shouldn't have written that; it will give them ideas.
When I slapped my hand up there today, all I found was a single sheet of paper. Here's a picture of it-
After I pulled the paper out and saw what it was, I looked to see if the same thing had been placed in anyone else's box. It hadn't. So I concluded the message was only for me. In the last hour or so I've thought about a couple of possibilities.
I heard in passing that a local minister was in the office today. Could he have left it for me? If he did, why?
Some of my co-workers read this blog, and many of them are believers too. One of them could have left it. If so, what message are they sending? Are the verses meant in response to something I've written? I also realize that the verses in question sandwich a passage Paul wrote about how women should be silent in the churches. Hmm...a subtle hint? I do talk a lot, and this blog isn't exactly a thing of 'proverbial silence.' On the contrary, it could also be a sort of paper 'amen' to the things I've written about unity and group process in the last few weeks.
I have thought of one more thing. The page looks like a Bible that I know belongs to a woman at our school. She is a very spiritually strong person, and we have a good connection and act as encouragers for each other. She's the type of person that would copy the page from her Bible, highlight, and deliver it simply because she feels the prompting of the Holy Spirit to do so.
In the recent past I've found myself involved in conversations with different people and doing some reading about how God works and just how literally we're meant to take His word. In particular I got a book at the library called If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. I haven't finished the book. I have enjoyed the emphasis on God's love and grace, but the central premise of the book is one with which I strongly disagree. Gulley and Mulholland proffer the idea that traditional church doctrine is all wrong. I won't attempt to explain here what they have to say since you can check it out for yourself if you'd like.
The things they say are really attractive, especially to someone like me that wants everybody to be right. However, I find their reasoning faulty, mainly because they say that God's word is not dependable that only certain parts combined with personal revelation can be trusted.
I'd like to say that I instantly rejected the ideas they put forward without any hesitation, but that's just not the way I'm wired. I had to read it and really think it through. More importantly I had to pray about it. A component of their persuasion is the idea that the early church faced resistance from the Jewish community based on the traditional way of viewing things. I doubted for a minute. I thought, "What if I'm wrong about this? What if I'm just relying on the way I've always seen things?"
Of course, after I thought about it for a while I came to the conclusion, once again, that I believe God's word is trustworthy and that all parts of it are divinely inspired.
I can't help but wonder if "Exhibit A" is really an answer to my prayer earlier in the week because under the highlighted verses, there are some study notes.
She held out the cups, and each one had a slice in it -- right down the side. Every single plastic cup in our kitchen was ruined. I will tell you now that I didn't do it. That's what I told my mom; my three siblings also denied any culpability. All of us then turned to my brother, next in birth order after me.
It was just the sort of thing he would do. He was forever trapping bugs outside and setting them loose in the house, mixing beverages in the kitchen, taking apart applicances to see how they worked, or waking up in the middle of the night to do some other forbidden thing. However, when he was accused, he went crazy! He started crying and even I believed that he didn't do it. Our sister was too little, and it seemed like it was something our other brother wouldn't do.
Mom took us to Wal-mart to pick out some new cups. Although we had something new to drink from, the mystery remained. Even now I don't really know who did it. If I had to guess, I'd say it was our younger brother. He has always believed that "revenge is a dish best served cold." I imagine he got mad at our other brother and cut the plastic cups to get him into trouble. Maybe he'll finally confess when he reads this. Who knows? It might have been a leprechaun or a disgruntled Easter Bunny.
Don't you just hate an unsolved mystery? Well, you might not, but I do. I was presented with one just this afternoon.
I went to my cubby-hole mailbox in the school office this afternoon. My box used to be at eye level, but this year it is at the very top. I'm too short to see inside, so I'm just waiting to reach in one day and feel something gross or get my hand caught in a mousetrap. There are people teaching on my hallway that would do this to me. In fact, I probably shouldn't have written that; it will give them ideas.
When I slapped my hand up there today, all I found was a single sheet of paper. Here's a picture of it-
Exhibit A
It's a photocopy of a page from someone's study Bible with two verses at the top highlighted. There's no note of explanation on it or any kind of hint about who put it in my box. The two highlighted verses are I Corinthians 14:33 "God is not the author of confusion but of peace." and I Corinthians 14:40 "Let all things be done decently and in order." After I pulled the paper out and saw what it was, I looked to see if the same thing had been placed in anyone else's box. It hadn't. So I concluded the message was only for me. In the last hour or so I've thought about a couple of possibilities.
I heard in passing that a local minister was in the office today. Could he have left it for me? If he did, why?
Some of my co-workers read this blog, and many of them are believers too. One of them could have left it. If so, what message are they sending? Are the verses meant in response to something I've written? I also realize that the verses in question sandwich a passage Paul wrote about how women should be silent in the churches. Hmm...a subtle hint? I do talk a lot, and this blog isn't exactly a thing of 'proverbial silence.' On the contrary, it could also be a sort of paper 'amen' to the things I've written about unity and group process in the last few weeks.
I have thought of one more thing. The page looks like a Bible that I know belongs to a woman at our school. She is a very spiritually strong person, and we have a good connection and act as encouragers for each other. She's the type of person that would copy the page from her Bible, highlight, and deliver it simply because she feels the prompting of the Holy Spirit to do so.
In the recent past I've found myself involved in conversations with different people and doing some reading about how God works and just how literally we're meant to take His word. In particular I got a book at the library called If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. I haven't finished the book. I have enjoyed the emphasis on God's love and grace, but the central premise of the book is one with which I strongly disagree. Gulley and Mulholland proffer the idea that traditional church doctrine is all wrong. I won't attempt to explain here what they have to say since you can check it out for yourself if you'd like.
The things they say are really attractive, especially to someone like me that wants everybody to be right. However, I find their reasoning faulty, mainly because they say that God's word is not dependable that only certain parts combined with personal revelation can be trusted.
I'd like to say that I instantly rejected the ideas they put forward without any hesitation, but that's just not the way I'm wired. I had to read it and really think it through. More importantly I had to pray about it. A component of their persuasion is the idea that the early church faced resistance from the Jewish community based on the traditional way of viewing things. I doubted for a minute. I thought, "What if I'm wrong about this? What if I'm just relying on the way I've always seen things?"
Of course, after I thought about it for a while I came to the conclusion, once again, that I believe God's word is trustworthy and that all parts of it are divinely inspired.
I can't help but wonder if "Exhibit A" is really an answer to my prayer earlier in the week because under the highlighted verses, there are some study notes.
"God does not tell one person to do something that completely contradicts and invalidates what He told someone else to do. Nor does He ever lead in opposition to His eternal Word. He is a God of order (but also of surprises!).
"Chaos is never a sign of God's leading. When something spirals out of control, you can be sure that God did not design it. He may lead in unusual ways, but He will never lead in inconsistent ways."I'm sure on Monday one of my friends will say, "Hey, did you get that page of Bible verses I put in your box?" He or she will then follow with an explanation. It won't really matter even if that doesn't happen. It's not the first time God has answered my prayers in an unusual way, and I'm sure it won't be the last.
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