Posted on 11/17/2007 7:09:14 PM PST by Philistone
So my downstairs neighbor is a rather elderly black woman originally from New Orleans. She apparently believes that when calling long distance she needs to go out on her balcony and shout.
In the rare conversations that we have had in passing, I can tell that she is a fervent believer.
And yet, whenever she talks on the phone about her life (nephew arrested again for selling crack, husband jailed on yet another DUI) she always ends her anecdotes with "I know the good Lord is just testing me, and that with faith I can get through it".
While I applaud the faith, I can't help wondering whether the presumption of blaming God for her travails isn't blasphemous.
Your thoughts?
She is hoping and saying that God will make it all work out for the Good of all involved.
Sort of like I’m in the desert now, but it will get better soon.
The problem I have is her shifting the blame from the lawbreaking nephew and husband and reassigning the blame for the situation on God.
No, dear lady, the lawbreakers are failing their tests, and they are the ones testing your faith in God.
nosey when she is always shouting it? hardly.
Everyone has their “cross” to bear. We have been promised that we will be given strength (grace) to see us through any hardship, if only we will accept it. I don’t think this lady meant that the Lord was causing these troubles just to test her, but was merely acknowledging that she was being tested by these hardships and was expressing her faith that, with God’s help, she will get through them.
“I know the good Lord is just testing me, and that with faith I can get through it”.
She’s saying it’s one of lifes’ trials,and with the Lords’ help she’ll make it thru..No matter what she is up against..It also sounds as if she cares about the folks in her life..
That’s how I read it..
LOL! I wish.
As I said in the intro, she likes broadcasting her intimate conversations on the phone in a loud voice from her balcony.
Forgive me.
The lady has a responsibility to “educate” her family.
She seems lacking in that ability.
She is not blaming God, but she is frustrated and needs to take a bit more responsibility.
“”I know the good Lord is just testing me, and that with faith I can get through it”.”
It sounds like you haven’t known many elderly, southern, black women. She isn’t trying to state theological fact.
This is a coping mechanism and a comforting habit.
Being the charitable person that I am, that is the interpretation that I would like to give it. I just get the sense that at times she is blaming God for things that are her (or her family’s) choices.
I believe her... God is testing her in very divine ways. Just as he tests the young couple who’s child is taken at a young age due to an ailment or accident. Just as he tests all of us all through our lives with trials and tribulations. God tested his own son.
I think that if God did not test us each in his own way there would be very little need to believe in him.
Anyway just my two cents... Now please tell your neighbor that she is very loud when she is on the phone and their are a lot of nosey neighbors that can hear her private conversations....
My opinion, she is not being blasphemous, as blasphemy is cursing or reviling God.
She is probably comparing her situation with that of Job in the Old Testament.
You and I may not agree with her interpretation, but to call it blasphemy is extreme, my opinion. Rather than criticize her or belittle her, better to pray to God that His will be done in her life, as well as in her family’s, as well as in your life. And while you are at it, please pray for God’s will to be done in my life. We all need God’s grace.
George: Wait. Whoa! That’s the Rabbi: from Elaine’s building. I just met this guy the other day.
Rabbi: A neighbor, let’s call her Elaine, happened to be standing on the porch talking on her phone. She felt that her husband, let’s call him George, was somewhat of a loser who kept getting arrested for DUI. She also happened to mention that her nephew was arrested again for selling crack. But that is a subject for another sermon. Now, I’d like to close with a psalm.
Yes...and it’s all about perspective. It’s most likely not too awfully different from what her Momma did and she probably learned alot by example.
I’m happy for her faith, it’s most likely the only way she can get through it. When she’s dead and gone, not only will this all seem like a milli-second, but it won’t seem so awful. Or maybe it will and she’ll be just that more thankful to have been delivered from it all...who knows? Each has a different set of circumstances don’t we?
It’s a drag now though.
That is a good question indeed, as we can apply it to our own lives. Is God testing me in my own travails this year, which are nothing like hers, because, for one, they affect me, and not my relatives? I don’t know, I am losing my faith, as we speak, or maybe I haven’t head it since I was a child. Have I sinned more than my neighbour to deserve this punishment? Questions, questions.
I think this woman’s questions are perfectly legitimate.
I agree totally.
I just think that there is a point at which believing that God deliberately put every single little obstacle in your path as a test, rather than understanding that God gave you free will so that you could choose to love Him or not, borders on the heretical if not blasphemous.
Dear Lord,
Forgive me for I have sinned by not immediately putting in ear plugs, running the shower, vacuum cleaner, blender, dishwasher, washer and dryer, and hiding my ears under the pillows whenever my downstairs neighbor decides to shout her intimate conversations from her balcony.
Is that better?
“While I applaud the faith, I can’t help wondering whether the presumption
of blaming God for her travails isn’t blasphemous.”
I ain’t no theology prof...
But I’d say she’s going with the general idea from The Book of Job.
Except for one nuance...
from what I recollect, G-d didn’t cause the travails of Job.
HE stepped aside to let the Devil do his worst, short of killing Job.
So the Devil would get to see that a mortal, in pain and suffering
a “perfect storm” of reversal COULD keep their integrity and faith.
OK, that’s tough to swallow for atheists, free-thinkers, scientific
reductionists, strict materialists, etc.
But it is the coping mechanism that many humans employing upon
encountering real difficulty and have to “keep the faith” no matter
how hard “the test” or “the trial” use to explain the actuality of
unjust suffering.
I admit that “the problem of pain” is most likely the most difficult
area of discussion for the religious when questioned by the average
Joe/Josephine about “If there is a just and good G-d, why did this happen.”
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