Tuesday, October 30, 2012
"Wisdom........................."
Pre-school hours here. Beth is still in bed and today’s lunch just needs to be transferred from the refrigerator to the little green thermal container that always goes with me. I watched a few minutes of television reporting on the devastation created thus far by this monster storm attacking the East Coast, one entire community in New York destroyed by a huge fire somehow started in the middle of all else. Facebook is full of pictures showing flooding and gigantic waves hitting the shoreline. If it wasn’t photo-shopped, one actually was taken of a fairly large shark swimming in the front yard of a New Jersey home. Sitting here in northern Kentucky experiencing discomfort only from a bit of lower temperatures, one holds shock and sympathy for those catching the brunt of all that fury, realizing that help is a material commodity, words accomplishing nothing unless they flow from the heart. That’s true, as far as I’m concerned, no matter the outreach, no matter the ministry. Indeed, I ask myself why it is that so many within the Christian community, when a brother or a sister is going through a battle, show up like that bunch who came to Job, utilizing some verse of Scripture as if it were a rebuke. A young friend of mine currently struggling and asking questions about many things, in posting his confusion on Facebook, almost immediately got lambasted for his lack of faith, Matthew 17:20 solving all things; and, while I realize the offender was probably not operating out of an intent to wound, yet it seems to me the church ought to teach its members better. Doctrinal dysfunction kills. The Holy Ghost heals and restores……
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Oh, this is so true. People mean well but I sometimes wonder if it is just too uncomfortable to be present to another's pain. I think of it as people holding up Scripture as a shield to keep another's pain from touching their own.
ReplyDeleteIt is a rare and beautiful thing when someone can simply be present, trusting that healing will take place in God's time, and to hang in there for the long haul.
You should know, my friend, your own journey thus far giving experience in the matter. Not all mean harm, I think, their actions just something the Church at large has taught them as they go. God proves Himself to us on each side of that fence, however. We all learn as life continues to come to us.
ReplyDeleteThere are no pat answers to someone's diagnosis of a disease that might well end their life early, no easy comforting words when someone has lost a child-but most of us desperately want to say something that might allay the pain. Yet some of the most comforting gestures I've had are when people just sit with me quietly acknowledging that these things are tough and it's okay to hurt over it.
ReplyDeleteWe dealt with this matter in our Wednesday Bible class last night and everyone ther expressed the same sentiments as you say here, Annie....
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