| | Last night at Bible study my pastor had a request for the attendees. He and an elder hold a service at the women's prison in town every Sunday afternoon, and the ministry has been bearing a lot of fruit. So last Sunday, when they took the written prayer requests they take each week, there was such in overwhelming influx of requests that my pastor couldn't handle them all. He brought them to Bible study and asked for our help, explaining that between church duties and his full-time job, he had only had time to pray for a few specifically and for the bunch generally. So everyone who was willing took a few off the pile, until they were all gone.
Last night, before bed, I broke out my little stash of requests and prayed over them. I had been planning to just quickly murmur a petition for each one, but as I read the scratchy penciled notes, I had to pause. I was overwhelmed. There is so much grief in the world.
These women have been on my heart all day. Since I've recently started work in the social services sector, I know that many of those women who scrawled their requests on crumpled paper have beloved children in the system I help to manage. I know many of them are grieved and frightened about their children's future, and about their future with their children. I know from their requests that almost all of them are struggling with addiction of some kind. Although mostly they didn't write about it, I'm certain that all of them have been dreadfully hurt, abused, and betrayed. And reading their words, praying over them, I couldn't help but wonder--what makes me so much more lucky than them? Why, in God's mercy, was there a place for so much sorrow, alongside so much peace?
But even as I prayed, I knew the answer. It is God's mercy that brought people like my pastor and our church, to stand alongside the broken and abused and to offer them grace. It is God's mercy that has kept them alive and seeking, that has brought them to this ministry of reconciliation.
The world is an evil place. Terrible things happen to innocent people every day. But the evil and terrible things are not the fault of God. It is the goodness in the world, not the evil, that is out of place. It is the grace and the love and the acceptance that don't belong in this life, not the sorrow. But God, in his great mercy, gives us blessings that have no place in a sinful world, and sends people to us who have been washed of their stains, to show us how to be cleansed.
So when you are dismayed at the state of our world, remember this: you are alive and whole, and that is the work of a God who has sent you. He has sent you to be a minister of receonciliation to those who otherwise might never escape death. And when your ministry to them falls into your hands (and it will, without a doubt), take it up and perform it with all the zeal of our God. Even if it seems as simple as whispering a bedtime prayer for someone you may never meet.
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| | Posted 6/11/2009 10:44 PM - 12 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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