A wife's dilemma

After 1 Samuel 18:20-19:24 

What happens when 

a wife is forced to choose

between a father and

a husband? How is the wife’s 

heart torn apart, knowing 

she must betray a father 

to protect a husband? 

This woman, forced

to choose, doesn’t

hesitate. She makes

her choice: protect

her husband. Perhaps

she knows her father’s

darkness, her husband’s

light. Perhaps she heard

the voice of God, guiding

her to protect and not

to abet murder. She pays

the price every choice

demands.

 

Photograph by Letizia Bordoni via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

More than a Welcome: Why Calling Your Church to Worship Really Matters – Barnabas Piper at Gospel-Centered Discipleship.

 

This is Not a Soapbox – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

St. Ciaran’s Fox – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street. 

Michal

I loved him, once.
My father used my love
To snare him, and
Named his price of
100 Philistines.
He paid 200,
With a smile,
And my
Father was afraid.

I loved him, once,
When he held me
In his arms, when
Our love was one.
The night of the spear,
I eased him through
The window, to
Escape my father’s hate.
My father gave me
To another,
Breaking one contract
To forge another.

I loved him, once,
When he forced me back
To his household,
When he was king.

But that day,
That day the ark returned,
That day of processions
Of priests and lyres,
Of officials and clanging cymbals,
Of king in linen dancing
In the street,
That day I died.

I saw my husband, my
Lover, the one
Who took my father’s crown
For his own head,
I saw him dance,
Not as a king might
But as the drunken peasant
He was, with
The other peasants,
The other shepherds
Dancing with him.

That day,
Embarrassment
Became shame
Became anger
Became fury
As cold as
Any sharp stone,
A jagged edge of hate.
My one desire was
To aim my father’s spear.

That day,
I let him see
My anger-flash,
My spit of contempt
With its tongued
Dagger point.

And now I sit
In this room,
Daughter of a king,
Wife of a king,
Surrounded by gold and
Fine cloth and
Wine and servants.
I sit in this place,
Waiting for his
Voice, his
Touch, his
Love.
No child I carry;
Only gall in my stomach.
I wait until I die.

But I loved him, once.