Struggles

Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy.  It is natural to let things go, to walk by situations, especially when the obvious is not.
I walked out of the apartment early.  Dawn was just beginning to break in the sky with early streaks sneaking through the tall apartment guarding the East River.  Normally there is an inherent softness about the scene.  Colors are muted in the early morning night.  This is a stillness that is only broken by the sound of those working to help the city come alive. 
This morning appeared as another living painting.  As I turned towards Delancy, I found myself caught by surprised by a young woman chatting blissfully away on her mobile.  Given the history of New York’s Lower East Side, I advise caution to the uninitiated.  The streets are not perfectly safe at any time of the day.  In the darkness of the night, even in the early hours of the dawn, evil can reveal itself at any moment.  She obviously ignored the warnings!  Her short sequined mini skirt was extremely minimal.  In the morning light it was easy to see that there was little or nothing underneath.  Her top mirrored the skirt.  As she blissfully talked to “Ed” on the phone, she said she was near Houston.  I cheerily interjected that she was on Essex near Grand.  Her response was simply to say to Ed that she was being hassled by a strange guy.  I walked on unsure what was right.
God invites you and I to walk in the light, do to what is right.  When we struggle with the odds against us, physical or physiological or unknown, the calling still remains.  “God says: ‘To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths and choose what delights me and keep a firm grip on my covenant, I'll provide them an honored place in my family and within my city, even more honored than that of sons and daughters.  I'll confer permanent honors on them that will never be revoked.”  (Isaiah 56.4, 5)  The struggle is worthy of the goal.