In the 1800s Governor Lew Wallace liked the winter weather of Socorro and Old Mesilla better than frigid Santa Fe. His favorite haunt in Socorro was the Park Hotel on the west side of the plaza. It was here he wrote the most of his novel, Ben Hur. Here on June 9th, 1954, at around 2 in the morning in Dr. Long’s office, Herb and the doctor are talking about cars, and Melba and Dr. Long’s wife/nurse are counting pains. Suddenly the nurse called, “If you two are going to help with this delivery, you better get in here.” By 3 AM, Herbert Dale Pinney, Jr. had arrived, screaming and wide awake. By 6 AM, he was sleeping in his own bed, Melba resting in hers, and Herb was fixing their breakfast, getting ready to go to school. The next morning at about 2 AM, Herb came in from work and went to bed. An hour later, Dale was wide awake and crying. I told Melba to quiet that boy down; I had to get some sleep. She told me, “If I get up now and tend to him when he’s not hungry or needing changed, I lose the battle.” Then she said, “One or two nights of letting him cry, I win the conflict and he learns to sleep at night.” Within a couple days Dale began to sleep all night every night. In this life we are in conflict day and night. The winners are the ones who pick their fights carefully and take a stand.
The majority of people will compromise to keep from taking a stand and allow conflicts to win. We have a good example of our government taking a stand, becoming the center of controversy, and upsetting a great number of people. Our Ambassador Nikki Hailey to the United Nations, backed by our President, took a stand for our friend and ally, Israel.
As a Christian that believes that God was serious in 2150 BC in a covenant with Abram, God envisioned his family, Israel, to whom he gave the most fought over piece of land in the entire world, the land bridge between Asia, Africa, and Europe, the land we call the Holy Land. At the same time, he promised that one of Abram’s seed would bless the whole world. The Apostle Paul tells us this blessing was to come through Jesus Christ. This is a good reason for us to take note of David’s admonition to pray for Jerusalem. In the last 70 years Israel has been a faithful ally of ours in the Middle East. Conflict is a matter of life. Just across the Gaza strip the Egyptian President has just ordered nearly 230,000 Egyptian soldiers of all faiths to protect the Christians this Christmas time from the Muslim Brotherhood attacks by Egyptians. I have never heard of this kind of protection for Christians before. The Muslim President chose to preempt any conflict with a show of force. This is the kind of stand that will bring harmony and peace to the area.
