And the tests led the surgeon to discover and remove the tumor. An alert doctor requested a series of tests. One of them accidentally kicked him in the stomach. When the boy was seven years old, he was horsing around with his cousins. The discovery of the tumor was the part of the story I found fascinating. He is now playing high school football, and the cancer clinic is a distant memory. The discovery led to several months of strenuous prayer and chemotherapy. Seven years ago a tumor was found behind the boy’s spleen. Most of our talk revolved around the health of his fourteen-year-old son. I enjoyed breakfast recently with a friend. Even a famine was fair game for God’s purpose. You’re assuming God isn’t in this crisis. “Cranky spouse… cranky spouse… cranky spouse… cranky spouse.”ĭo you recite your woes more naturally than you do heaven’s strength? If so, no wonder life is tough. “The divorce… divorce… divorce… divorce.” “The economy… the economy… the economy… the economy.” Joseph began and ended his crisis assessment with references to God. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. If he did, he included the words he told his brothers: Makes a person wonder if Joseph ever taught a course in crisis management. A society that was ripe for bedlam actually thanked the government rather than attacked it. You have saved our lives let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants. Years passed, and the people told Joseph, Yet contrast the description of the problem with the outcome. Joseph faced a calamity on a global scale. Go to Joseph whatever he says to you, do. When people appealed to Pharaoh for help, he said, Animal carcasses littered the ground, and no hope appeared on the horizon. It had been two years since the last drop of rain. Genesis 47:13ĭuring the time Joseph was struggling to reconcile with his brothers, he was also navigating a catastrophe. Now there was no bread in all the land for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. Calamities can leave us off balance and confused.Ĭonsider the crisis of Joseph’s generation. I asked him to describe the expressions on the faces of the people who had come to look at the pictures.ĭisbelief, for many, was the drug of choice. He was posted next to the plywood wall of photos - the wailing wall, of sorts - on which relatives had tacked pictures and hopes. Later that night I spoke with an officer who guarded the entrance to the Family Care Center. But the cranes carried no cameras, just concrete. I half expected - and even more, wanted - to hear someone yell, “Quiet on the set!” and see actors run out of the ruins. The tragedy spoke a language I’d never studied. Several thousand people are under there, I told myself. Those leaving were more so, faces as steely as the beams that coffined their comrades. A flank of yellow-suited firemen, some twelve or so in width, marched past us. Any other day it would have made the cover of a magazine.īut most of all I didn’t expect the numbness. The next-door Marriott had been gutted by the cockpit of a jet. I didn’t anticipate the adjoining damage. In spite of the rain and truckloads of water, flames still danced. I decided not to think about what I was inhaling. But on this day the sidewalk was muddy, and the air was thick with smoke. A week earlier this road had been full of flannel suits, cell phones, and market quotes. Three checkpoints later we parked the car and walked the final half mile. But each passing second took with it a grain of hope. Loved ones mingled outside the Family Care Center, where the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship, sat docked. To reach the epicenter of activity, we drove through layers of inactivity. The first morning I entered the city and saw no towers, I called my wife and cried.” I looked at it each day as I came over the bridge. “See the hole to the left of the one with the spire? Three days ago that was the World Trade Center. He could tell that I couldn’t see the spot. He pointed through the windshield at the forest of buildings called Lower Manhattan. Neck too big for his collar, hands too thick to wrap around the steering wheel. I leaned forward and followed the finger of the driver.
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