Praise becomes you

Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

King David, Psalm One Hundred and Fifty

When all is said and done, the only appropriate response is to praise the Lord.

For a little while now I have agonized about my dear Mama’s life which for the longest time I perceived as an unbearable plight. I’ve grieved how when she was just beginning her life as a wife, mother, and high-level career woman, a terrible war broke out in the country she was born and raised in, leaving her with nothing but her life, husband, and children and a few clothes on their backs.

I’ve agonized over the ensuing days and years as a refugee, having had to be humiliated to minimal works even though she had accomplished cum laude university graduations and accumulated executive international expertise.

And as if all this calamity was not enough, I’ve been staggered by the unspeakable loss of her son to murderous thugs and her husband to illness in the same year.

Preceding this deadly year, Mama endured consecutive years of losing her parents from whom she had been separated and not seen since fleeing during the war in the country of her birth.

It has been a few years since the little while of lamentation came upon me, around the time Mama turned fifty-nine. In the spiral of my distress over her misery, I’ve plunged to the depths of despair.

What meaning could be found in all of my Mama’s trials and tribulations? What purpose could be contrived from all her pain? And if one such as she could live so many years in hardships, what was the point of her life? And if her life should have no point, what hope remained for the rest of us?

After much guttural sobbing and wailing one night, the Word came to me, urging me to see beyond the suffering to the glory. Sure, the odds of my Mama recovering the mansion she was building before senseless war bombs decimated her efforts, look slim. But in Our Father’s house, are many mansions, of which our Savior Lord Jesus has gone to prepare for her, and me, and whosoever believes.

With this word, I began to glimpse the glory of the Almighty displayed through a simple woman’s tenacity, faithfulness and fortitude of mind and spirit. I continue to be floored by the Wisdom who uses the simple things, the foolish things, the senseless things, to confound the wise, and still work it all out in conformity to his will – a gloriously definite hope and future.

Hallelujah!

Praise is the expression of approval or admiration for someone or something.

It is infinitely hard to conceive praise to the Creator when his creation is still in groaning, like a woman about to give birth. We see and experience tremendous suffering and wonder whatever in the world there could be to admire of a King who does not stoop down and instantly soothe every ache and pain.

Yet it is only in hindsight that we may get to glimpse the inarticulable glory of the perfect wisdom of God. It is the nature of fortitude that it should be attained through perpetual adversity, strain, pain, and resistance. It is transcendently mesmerizing that One should put his whole heart on the line to ache as he administers or allows his dearly beloved to undergo present suffering, for a greater reward he knows will meet them in the end.

There are so many wonderfully terrifying strengths and aptitudes I have gained through surviving a war and life as a refugee and watching my parents struggle yet persevere and not crumble. 

Most days I fear and tremble at these examples my Mama has set for me. In 2020, my Mama, at the high-risk age of sixty-three contracted COVID, yet she was adamant that she would live. As excruciating as the afflictions of COVID were, she daily dragged, even crawled out of bed, to have a cold shower, and at times only an English bath since where she lives suffers municipal service maleficence. Such an arduous morning would be followed by a full day at a thankless job, hemmed by travel time and big city traffic.

I cannot say I yearn to undergo such hard testing, in fact, my plea is mercy. Yet, therein I find appreciation for a Father’s foresight, to grant me a model of conquering through sheer grit and staggering integrity. Moreover, I am brought to full awe and admiration of the Creator of such a spirit as the one embodied in my Mama.

Surely He who made her has also made me uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully!

Therefore I approve and greatly admire the incomparable divine wisdom of God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all who live in it.

Hallelujah.

Praise is the expression of respect and gratitude as an act of worship.

I’ve come to deeply revere our Creator’s ability and perfect qualities that enable him to govern every aspect of the heavens, the earth, and all creation.

There was for a vast span, a season when I dared to wield God’s scepter. In my god complex, I incessantly worried about my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and virtually everyone whose existence was tethered to my heart. Eventually, I learned that humans were not made to bear the weight of the whole world. It’s already not easy bearing our own weight! Yet to conceive of God, who has the whole world in his hand. RESPECT.

It was a needlessly long time before I relented and relinquished God’s scepter, yet the bane of our existence is pride, so I can now understand why I foolishly held on for so long.

There is a defiance in the human heart that would strive to disapprove of superiors and authority. Perhaps you’ve seen, or like me you have shamefully partook in coffee break huddles where the junior employees grumble against their superiors’ decisions, directives, and standards. Most of the murmurs revolve around how the manager, boss or leader ought to do this or that in this or that way.

Most of these prescriptions are only for the complainants’ immediate benefit at any point of contention, all the while failing to manage with distinction the small parts of the whole with which they are entrusted. 

It is only after I was delivered from the folly of undermining the extensive ability and competency of my boss to make organizational wise decisions, the lengthy hours in strategy meetings, and the extensive application of high-level logic and analytics that I repented of the futility of despising those in offices of authority.

During the novel global pandemic of twenty-twenty, I remember the multitude of prescriptions for how the president should and ought to manage the crisis while still governing the sixty-million population. Most of the dictating spectators barely survived managing themselves, or their two to six-person households. And at the end of the day, the nation would go to sleep while the president labored with various teams to ensure the best possible scenario for all. 

So it is with God, the creator of the known and unknowable universe.

While he works out all cosmic magnitudes for the good and perfect will of all creation, his surpassing attributes and accomplishments are derided by the blind and the cripples whose own hair they have no accounting.

When I consider my defiance, I come to recognize that any discreditable contempt towards anyone’s admirable, lovely, noble, pure, righteous, excellent, and praiseworthy ability and achievement is sheer wickedness.

But what praise can I conjure when I find myself in great distress, subjugated by unfathomable evils and troubles?

This was my incessant cry when I believed that The Almighty was a blind, deaf and cruel sadist, until one scene renewed my mind to the glory and majesty of Our Father, in heaven.

In the twenty-eighteen Avengers: Infinity War movie, Dr. Strange runs through all the possible scenarios in which the Avengers could hope for a victory against the nihilist Thanos. There is but only one scenario.

Maybe, this is the case with individual life and all creation. That the ant that is crushed by my careless traipse upon the earth finds itself a purposeful soldier, catalyst, and participant in the only scenario that tips other effects into motion. Perhaps my decimated childhood is the best scenario whose ongoing outcome is the person now contemplating these things.

Perhaps the gruesome murder of my closest brother, was the best scenario in all cosmos that finds me here, with my only trust and hope in Omnipotent Presence and Permanence.

More could be said, debated, and searched out. But this I have witnessed, I know, and continue to discover:

When every tear has been shed,

When every complaint has been murmured,

When every hope has been exhausted,

What remains is to approve God’s holy Sovereignty 

To admire the surpassing wisdom of Him who works out all things in conformity to His will,

To respect the genius of His intellect that orchestrated every inhale and exhale on the earth, from the minute ant to the giant blue whale,

To worship and give thanks to Him whose enduring love came down to scandalously love, forgive, and reconcile everything to Himself,

To honor the only One who knows the end from the beginning, Whose knowledge of the plans He has for all – plans not to harm but to provision a hope and a future is enough,

To acclaim Him who holds the universes in the palm of His hands, and still knows your name, my name, and the number of hairs on each head.

Yes. Let everything that has breath. Praise the Lord

With every inhale and exhale

Praise the Lord.