Set Apart To Be A Blessing

Pacing from streetlight to streetlight, with my phone pressed hard against my ear, I wore a circled path on the asphalt. My head down, my feet entered the illumined cone shaped area on the pavement. There I turned again into the darkness and repeated my walk back to the lighted area I’d come from. The hospital parking lot was nearly empty, scattered about by just a few cars.

Around and around I looped. Back and forth. From one lighted pole back to the one I came from, pouring out my heart.

On the other end of the phone was my friend. In the nighttime of my soul, she heard the questions. She listened like Job’s friends, only much better.  She kept her mouth shut, occasionally sharing words with wisdom.

I grilled her for shreds of hope about my daughter’s health condition.

“Why did the Doctor say that?”

“Will she get better?”

And she heard my sticky desperate cries of, “Does Jesus care?”

I kept my routine of pacing night after night in the hospital parking lot, often just a break before returning to the somber room with its beeps and whines, while she listened with patience, grace, and love.

My dear friend, was a few years older than me. My husband and I had been youth group leaders for her teenagers once, while ours were still being born. She was like a gatekeeper, carefully opening the doors for me to confront what I felt, softly teaching me to close doors I shouldn’t even think of walking through, and helping me hold on to Jesus through the seasons of life.

First Chronicles 26 organizes King David’s temple gatekeepers by divisions. Like many of the Old Testament books, 1 Chronicles isn’t short of lists. Names, occupations, and responsibilities with sometimes somewhat boring detail.

Sons of sons, fathers and grandfathers, each fading farther and smaller into the background. Obscure but real. They lived, loved, hated, felt deep desires, planned, bore children, worked jobs, suffered and experienced death. Yet, these generations of forgettable names of people somehow made it into the divine annals of God’s Word for us to read today.   

In those difficult to pronounce lists, sometimes one suddenly, seemingly random name sets itself apart. And there appears a comma after the name. Able. Skilled. Mighty. Warrior. Musician. Singer. Played instruments. Carved wood or cut stone.

These names always make me pause.

First Chronicles 26:4-5, is one such example. In a long list of temple  gatekeepers, Obed-Edom’s eighth and last son was named, Peullethai.

Gatekeepers, kept the temple clean, maintained sanctity and security, kept the treasuries, and ordered worship and service. Many of these job divisions passed down from generation to generation.

“And Obed-edom had sons: Shemaiah the firstborn, Jehozabad the second, Joah the third, Sachar the fourth, Nethanel the fifth, Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, Peullethai the eighth, for God blessed him.” (1 Chronicles 26:4-5 ESV)

Obed-edom, after his long list of eight sons, was set apart by a comma.

“Obed-edom…Peullethai the eight, for God blessed him.”

I’d like to think that in this vast world and history, God has placed a comma behind my name too. Wouldn’t you?

And in an unfathomable way, He has.   I’d like to think that in this vast world and history, God has placed a comma behind my name too. Wouldn’t you? Share on X

Jesus reached down and chose us to belong to Him for all eternity. Not out of our merit, but by His grace. Like a bio or postscript with a distinguishing comma. Sylvia Schroeder, God chose her.

At various times in my life, I’ve wanted different distinctions of merit. I’ve felt my identity rested in after-commas, wife, mother, missionary, writer.

But centuries after Obed-Edom’s comma, I recognize that the best possible postscript continues long after my name fades from memory.

Maybe Obed-Edom was especially masterful at gatekeeping. Maybe he was a super husband and father, protecting his family at all costs. Perhaps his heritage included slaying enemies at the gate. But what we know is that he was a mere gatekeeper in a long line of gatekeepers, chosen by God to be set apart by a comma forever. Because God blessed him.

What does your after-comma say? What would you like it to say? I could name a long list of wonderful, godly influencers in my life. People who left a note when I needed one. When we were low on finances, a check in the mail or at just the right time an encouraging word.What does your after-comma say? Share on X

Those simple acts carry in my heart a comma which distinguishes them from all others. Their name is set aside in my memory as a person of significance, set apart, not as much for what they did as for who they were.

I want my comma to be followed by something which establishes the imprint of Jesus pressed into the life of another.

Obed-Edom reminded me of my friend, to whom years ago, I blurted out my soul, as I walked a dark path.

I cannot imagine my cell-phone-parking-lot-friend’s name without a comma, for the nights of my pacing, and the hours of her listening. For the tears she cried while catching mine, and for the absolute unshakable faith and knowledge that Jesus did indeed care.

After the comma, her legacy will stay in my mind. Gatekeeper to faith, blessing from God.