Remembering President Kennedy

   It was the fall before I turned 16, November 22, 1963, and I was sitting on the school bus, ready to go home.  A kid got on the bus and said, "The president is dead--someone shot him!" Even as a teenage, I was pretty skeptical and just didn't believe it could be true.  It had just been about 5 months earlier that I stood in the rain with my family and about a gazillion other people to see this tall, handsome president when he spoke in Charleston, West Virginia.  I was from a Republican family, but we were all very impressed to see a president in person, and his speech made us proud to be West Virginians.

 

JFK in WV

         Click this link to hear what he said that rainy day in 1963

 As we rode on the school bus that day, we had no cell phones to call and check the facts.  We just had to wait until we got home to turn on the black and white tv and see what was on the news.  But when the bus stopped at the Red House post office, I saw the flag had been lowered to half mast, and I knew it must be true.  We didn't have CNN with news around the clock, but we were stunned to see the news unfolding-- watching Jackie Kennedy's blood-stained pink suit, the funeral procession, little John Kennedy saluting his father, Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald--- it was all horrifying and terribly sad.

   This week at church, Pastor Tom brought a message from the book of Habakkuk. The prophet was giving a message from God that terrible times were at hand -- the Babylonians were going to conquer and take the people into captivity.  It was a devastating message to the people of Judah.

   Just like our country felt when President Kennedy was assassinated -- just like Habakkuk felt when the Babylonians attacked -- it seems that our country is in trouble again.  Nothing but bad news on tv. But the words from the Old Testament are still true today.

  Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.