Joseph & What Would I Do?

I recently learned some insightful ripening information that has changed my banana-eating life forever. The fruit has been absent from my tongue for years due to throat swelling. It feels like I have an annoying food obstruction in the throat, for hours. My dreams of eating the luscious half-moons lingered, and hopeful attempts always failed until one eye-opening day Dr. Oz suggested eating slightly green bananas, for weight loss. They satisfy for longer time periods, and their sugar content is lower. I figured, "Why not give it a try to see if green bananas make a swell difference for me?"

This introduction tartly segues to pondering whether one dreamy Bible character faced a similar but more serious quandary...

Standing before Egypt's Governor and second-in-command-only-to-Pharaoh are 10 brothers. In their youth years, the throat-swelling scallywags were insanely jealous of favored Joseph. They planned to feed their helplessly outnumbered half-brother to wild animals. The evil plan somehow mutated to a more logical and palatable solution: "Let's sell father's favored son into slavery. He's a braggart who thinks that one day WE will serve HIM! We'll fizzle his dreams!"

These same 10 siblings, now men, unknowingly approach their sold-into-slavery brother. This occurs after roller-coaster slavery events ended up benefiting resilient Joseph. After lengthy imprisonment he was sovereignly promoted to skillfully oversee storing grain for 7 abundant years and then rationing and selling that grain during 7 difficult draught years. His supernatural interpretation of Pharaoh's prophetic dream promoted him. Desperate, hungry people travel miles to bow to Joseph begging for Egypt's precious life-sustaining grain.

It seems highly likely to this writer that Joseph longed for the day that he would come face-to-face with his 10 horrible half-brothers (plus his adored brother and father). Through the years, opportune interpretations of dream-after-dream rang true for Joseph. How about the brother-bowing dreams?

In his dreams, he interpreted that all 11 brothers bowed to him. Naive teen Joseph unwisely shared his self-exalting dreams, and it crossed the intolerance line for his older half-brothers.

Now, Joseph faces a curious family of 10 bowing brothers. If there had been 11, the recognition would have been easier. Yet, the dream-connection still occurs: "I recognize this family. They are... my father's... sons!!! But wait. Why are there not 11? The years-ago dreams included all of my brothers and my father! This isn't playing out as I envisioned. Where is adored Brother Benjamin? I must see him alive!"

A quick decision must be made by Joseph: "Do today's events line-up 'close enough' to my dreams to act upon, in some way? Is Brother Ben even alive? IF I share my identity, will I endanger ever seeing Ben again? Will my brothers kill him, like they wanted to kill me, and then return with an impostor?"

There is a disturbance in the faith-force, and... I wonder what I would do. Over 50 years of living have shown me lessons about sibling envy and rivalry:

• It dates way back, to Cain and Abel.
• The (coat-of-many-colors) favored sibling might one day be a life-saver; be nice to him/her.
• Sibling relationships cannot be removed from memory banks and will hopefully motivate me for good.
• Brother and sister relationships will resurface, so look for the bigger picture.
• Test the spirits and earnestly seek for... the kindred-Sib.

Joseph can opt for the scarcity mindset: "Every time I've been promoted, someone ruins it. This time, will it be my horrible brothers, again? They deserve to be sent away hungry."

Joseph instead decides to take the high road, and he sees the big picture. He sells food to his brothers for the sake of his entire family. He attaches wise character-strings to their next plea for food. The "show-me-Ben" test is on.

Were the prophetic brother-dreams given to protect Joseph... from himself? How would he have treated his brothers if not for those dreams? Was there dual dueling: Joseph testing his brothers; and, God testing formerly-naïve Joseph (now Egypt's key decision-maker)? Did Joseph's heart need a few more ripening months before revealing his true identity?

And now, mind-ramble leads to this question: At my age, do I dare to believe for my significant youthful dreams to be fulfilled? Time seems to be running out.

God knows the pique ripening moment where color, texture, and taste intersect for my prime absorption AND for His purposes.

Months later, Joseph is perfectly ripened to re-unite with adored Brother Ben and his aged father. He saves his entire family and his nation and the prophecy is fulfilled, down to the last detail.

AND, this post-script is included for tart consumption: My dreams of eating bananas have come true. Slightly green bananas have a wonderfully tart taste, and  just once a week (that's better than never), one digests... tres bon.

♫ Here Comes the Bride ♫

     Adrenaline-filled start lines and cheering finish lines; nervous beginnings and drained endings; circular paths and round-trip tickets; race tracks and roller coasters; wrinkled, helpless newborns age to wrinkled, helpless adults; 12:00 returns to 12:00; sunrise returns to sunrise; alpha and omega, beginning and end.

     It has been 15 months and over 100 posts since the birth of my first blog series Deo Volente. I cross the finish line at the start. I am hopefully a modified person. We are anything but static creatures; we age and hopefully mature.

     In high school I had just one year of French class. I remember bits and pieces of French sayings, but sentences are few. It is a challenging language to learn. Spanish would have been so much more practical; I've traveled to South America, but never to Europe. My French name was Dianne... (pronounced Dee-on). My sister's romantic foreign name was Colette. Her name warmly floats off the tongue and sounds amour, and prettier than mine (actually, she is pretty).

     My new blog is named Tres Bon (pronounced tray bone with a French, throaty delivery), which means: Very Good. I go out on a limb believing this: Very good thoughts are coming.
 
     A tasty, value-added term for full-meal reading absorption is: DEBRIDEMENT. It does not mean removing a bride from a wedding ceremony, nor ejecting her from the honeymoon suite. The pronunciation is de-breed-ment, which does not mean a de-bred horse. The medical definition is: The process of removing dead skin cells (or debris) from a wound or sore.

     Sometimes debridement involves surgery and pain; healthy skin closure is the goal. Healthy parental closure was my Deo Volente blogging goal (also known as PTSD, psycho-babble).  

     The prolonged therapeutic session is now waning. I am grateful for sabbatical time with skillfully-led surgery and recovery. The prognosis is: Hopeful. The process was anything but bombogenesis-rapid; but it was the bomb rather than a bomb.

     The beginning of this post begs for a somewhat circular conclusion. A bride normally exits the wedding ceremony the same way she enters. Let the wedding march mentally begin:
       

♫Here comes the bride... (Bonjour, Tres Bon!)

...There goes debridement♫ (Au Revoir, Deo Volente!)

Genesis 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good [emphasis mine].