Consciences

Well it's Monday, I went over to Golden Years for the Bible study. It was a great time. I had more people than the norm. Jennifer the activity director helped get some of them that are not generally there. Jennifer is such a nice person, She cares deeply for people, showing kindness and respect to all that she meets, as far as I've seen. I don't think there are many people like her on this planet. Any way, we didn't do but one chapter today, Genesis chapter 42. We started by talking about the consciences of the brothers of Joseph. Even as they found the money was back in the sacks, They wondered if God was punishing them for what they had done to Joseph so many years earlier. And of course that touched off a conversation about our consciences and whether or not, we too had things on our consciences that had been for years. Mr. Maynard told a story that was a bit funny, but yet was so sad. It seems that he too had carried a secret of something that he had did when he was in the service. He had forgotten his helmet and did not want to be caught without it, so he took another mans helmet in the effort to stay out of trouble. He got by with it, leaving the man on the end to pay the punishment. Mr. Maynard said he went to see the man that lived in another state, With the purpose of telling him the truth of the whole thing. He paid for the bus fare and everything, but when it came down to it, he couldn't bring himself to telling the man the truth, especially when the man remembered the incident as if it were just last week. although it had been fifty long years. Mr. Maynord said he even asked him again if he "Mr. Maynard" knew who had done it. Mr. Maynard say he told him he didn't know. And again the man came to see Mr. Maynard a few years ago, Mr Maynard said he again backed out from telling him the truth, even though he wanted very much to free himself from the guilt and come clean. Mr Maynard, looked at me and asked, wonder why I couldn't tell him the truth?

And you know I suspect that there are many of us in that same situation. That have carried something that we did wrong with us for years. And just as I had no answer for Mr. Maynard, I have no answer for anyone else. We do what we do, and hopefully one day, maybe at the gates of Heaven where we'll ''have'' to get it straight with one another. It's a puzzle that I'll just leave at that.

God Bless