El Shaddai: The Almighty God
Psalms 91:1 KJV
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalms 84:10-11 KJV
10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
Thursday night, I held my youngest son and cried myself to sleep, cried because of the cruelty of this world. Earlier in the evening I had been reminded of just exactly why I don't watch the news. The headlines and stories are heartbreaking, full of evil, and leave me physically sick thinking of how much my small town has now become like the world, they've become the same, no longer inseparable. No longer can I say I live in a Mayberry-esque town because the things that I read Thursday night don't happen in Mayberry. Parents in Mayberry loved their children. They protected them from all harm and taught them right from wrong. The parents in Mayberry didn't become the monsters hiding in the closet. Abuse, sexual, physical, or mental, was unheard of in Mayberry, unthought of. But the reality is that Mayberry was never real. Sheriff Andy Taylor never existed. Aunt Bee never cooked and cleaned the house while Opie was at school. Barney Fife never carried his single bullet in his pocket. Mayberry was too good, too innocent to be true.
Today, children aren't safe in their own homes, aren't safe from their own parents and siblings, much less the strangers that live in their towns. The reality is that sin entered into the world with Adam and Eve and the majority of the generations of men living today have given up on fighting the evil battling to completely possess their hearts. What other explanation do we have for a "mother" to allow the sexual abuse of her own children and knowingly allow them to sexually abuse other children, innocents as young as 6 and 3 years old?
My first reaction to this news article was to call for a courthouse lynching, to string this woman up and send her straight to hell. But as I cried myself to sleep, clutching Devlin and breathing in his sweet baby scent, I found myself asking for forgiveness of those thoughts. What that woman did deserves eternal punishment, hellfire and brimstone, unending torment. But I was reminded that as a sin sick, flesh woman myself, I too deserve the same fate. No, my crimes, my sins, in no way amount to the sickness, evil, and dementedness that her actions do, but that doesn't matter because our fates were once the same. I would still be headed towards an eternity in flames where the worm dieth not, if not for El Shaddai, The Almighty God, The All-Sufficient God. El Shaddai, in His infinite love for us sent His only begotten Son to take our punishment. His sacrifice became sufficient for my sins and all I had to do was accept Him as The Almighty God, my Savior.
If she so chooses, this woman too, as vile and evil as I believe her to be, can find forgiveness, mercy, and grace, just as I did at the feet of The Almighty God. And the children involved will find love, pure, selfless, all encompassing love in El Shaddai. Though they have a lifetime of issues to work through, He is sufficient. His unending mercy and grace will be sufficient to see them through this lifetime until they are in His presence. I just pray that they have someone in their lives who loves them enough to introduce them to the Man who can be their strength and sustainer, El Shaddai.
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