The World is Filled With Sad Things

Last updated on: October 1, 2023 at 7:43 am by Mark Williams

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The World is Filled With Sad Things 2023-10-01T07:43:38-07:00 Mark Williams

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…SAD THINGS

The world is filled with sad things. Which causes us to blame God. That, alone, allows us to carry on the debate in our brain that since He is God, He allowed sadness to happen. Yep, that’s true. Sin does that. Sin is all about sadness and getting us to NOT focus on God, separating us from Dad. Like this picture, standing as a metaphor for an end to a good thing. An empty glass of goodness. No, I am not making fun of or belittling your pain, loneness or sadness by comparing it to an empty beer glass. It was half gone before the waitress was halfway back to another table. The other half, well, it followed quickly. In this case, the liquid loaf of bread, filling multiple roles, feeding the masses with its foamy goodness, quenching a thirst, and hydrating the body. I am not sure why the medical community does not write script for this.

…I am too old….

Another historical accident of our ancestors who left the keg of hops and burnt barley sit in the puddle of water with the potato skins, only to discover a gift to the world.

I think I would like to discover an accidental gift. But I am too old to follow it through. Not enough caring in this body to see it to the end and then to some seventeenth-floor office, the heart of the world market in whatever the accident was. My door would be open so I could call out. “Mrs. Billingsly, I need you to come take a memo.”

Of course, she would yell back, “write your own damn memo, you crackhead. No one takes memos anymore.”

Of course, she is right. Plus, being the discoverer, I don’t think I want an office on any seventeenth floor. I want it in someplace like Green Valley, if it’s still called that. Just outside of Payson on your way to Chrisopher Creek. It’s a valley ranch in a small green valley with horses and cows. I could run my company from there. I could call people and ‘zoom’ them. We would chat and drink coffee and talk about sales of the new product in Nepal.

…and a clubbed foot.

Then, after my meeting, I would go to the barn where Tony, a found homeless man, with the rheumatism and a clubbed foot, was with my horse. He walked up to me at the Mercantile in Payson asking for money. I told him I would get him a sandwich and a job—at the ranch if he wanted it.

But no money.

He agreed.

He made a nice little apartment out of a back room in the barn and every morning he tended to the herd and every morning, he saddled my horse, Buxom Betty, half quarter horse and part draft and whatever that ancient war horse animal they rode in ancient Rome. She and I would go for a ride and sometimes Tony went too. But it is good alone time for me and Tony knows it.

We would ride to a short hill that happens to be higher than the valley. I would get my freshly made coffee thermos out of my saddle bag and have a half cup, since I had already had a full size one that morning. I would give Betty her carrots, she—reaching around with her huge head and taking the offering. There, we would sit. Pondering our day. A nice dream Dad gave me.

No sadness in this saddle, I assure you. At least, not today.

…He is in the middle of our stuff.

Dad, ah-Dad. He, in the middle of our stuff, allows us to dream. Sometimes, those dreams come true far beyond what we, ourselves, could even imagine. But if they don’t, I am still with Him because something in that dream of mine was not what He wanted for me. It could be a different path, a bigger path, a calmer path. Something. He does that. He loves us that much.

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About Mark Williams

Mark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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