Everyone here knows I need your prayers! Physically, I am receiving the best care for which I could hope. I have had hospitalization, physical therapy, and the best nursing any husband could ever have imagined in his wildest imagination! Many of you have had to help share the load and have extended yourselves far what would be normal! The Great Physician has helped me and I am getting stronger each day!
The most difficult thing about all this is that I can not do anything to make it better than I am doing! When there is a problem, my modus operandi is to take action and get to work on fixing it. But, I am doing that and still not having the progress I want! It is hard for someone who is accustomed to taking care of others to receive care for themselves!
I know I have not been taking care of all my responsibilities. Pastor Joane has had to take over the preaching, the pastoral duties, the household duties, and all the other duties I have not been able to attend to. I have not been able to accomplish the tasks I want to see done and have leaned heavily upon many of you, past the point of what I should have! But, you have stepped up to the tasks and done them better than I could!
My brokenness has worked on my pride! It has been thrown in my face that I am not God! I can not fix very much, especially the everything I am accustomed to trying to fix! I can not do what I want – I still need help. It is the coming to the end of myself to admit this. The emotional pain of the reality of my inabilities is more acute than any physical pain I could suffer!
As I reflect on this, I realize how it is a picture of GRACE! We all struggle with grace! God provides us with grace. He is the only source. We have no role in the giving of grace except in the receiving of it. Receiving grace is admitting to ourselves that we are needy. We think we have it within ourselves to buy, to earn, or to work for God’s acceptance. But we are more unable than we could ever realize. We may confess it with our mouths, that we are sinners in need of God’s help, but it is another matter to believe it in our hearts!
We, by our nature, are compelled to do something and to have a role in making it right. Instead of allowing God to fix our problems, we take the burden on ourselves. Our nature compels us to be in control. That is the reason that doctors and nurses are the worst patients. We have a much easier time putting our future in our hands than we have of leaving it to God.
Often, we have those who come by because they are in need of food. It is easy for us to open the Chapel Pantry and share, but some will not come because they feel it is an admission of failure on their part. No one wants to be a “Charity Case”.
But, we are all “Charity Cases”! We are all the rufugee. We are all the cancer patient. We are all the person confined to a nursing home. We are all the debtor who can not pay the bills. We are all the victims of abuse. We are all the addicts. We are all the homeless one holding up the signs on the street corners. We are all the lepers. We are all the paralytics. We are all the blind. We are all the sinners. At some place, we are powerless and helpless over our circumstances.
My point it that it is easy to pride ourselves that we are not like the others. We think we can take care of ourselves. We often think we do not need God or anyone else! But, when we finally come to grips with our helplessness, we find hope in God’s healing grace.
