As I half heartedly predicted much earlier in the day, it has indeed turned out to be a long one. The rain falling and the frost warning for tonight seems to add to the bleakness around here today.
Yes, the gong show that is Purolator Courier screwing up a toner delivery to our nearest town so that I could pick it up and get printing again and get these mailers into the post before deadline, ...deep breath... seems rather insignificant as I pastor these people of The Field through a tough day.
Mental illness, depression, is such a deep dark unknown and unexplored region of our humanity, that we as humans don't always know how to help one caught in it's grip. When those we love struggle so heroically with the unseen illness it sometimes throws us into our own spin downward. As the one we love is being pulled away from us by unseen powers we become desperate people.
So tonight the only need is God's abiding, powerful presence. To bring peace to troubled hearts. To heal broken minds. To restore what the enemy has taken. To declare hope where once there was none. To be our hero, our saviour, and ride to our aid and somehow, through the darkness, save us.
And we know, deep down inside, that we are all in need of being saved. We all need a hero, a redeemer king who is able to reach down through great distances and save us from our enemies, and ourselves. Thank God we have One.
So tonight I am back at the office, working, writing, waiting, and praying for some of these that I care for, that tonight He would be their redeemer king in powerful saving ways too.
From the Field where for the first time I see standing pools of water, which might be ice covered by morning,
Night.
Prayer and Acts of Service:
ReplyDeletePrayer and action ... can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us into a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering Christ.
Henri Nouwen... Compassion.
Jeremy