Pray for Peace

When a loved one is ill, we are often bombarded by friends who want to help - to just do something.  I have been the friend wanting to make something better because I know I cannot possibly make eveything better. This week, I have had to switch gears and be on the receiving end of so much love.  I don't like it.  It's awkward. I'm independent.

This week, however, I have been forced It's to pause and listen to my own well-intentioned words, "If you don't let people help you, you take away their opportunity to serve."  I have said it to so many friends that I cannot even begin to count them.  I have a few friends I say it to often. This week, one said it back. My own words turned against me!

I want my friends to be involved, to help as much as they are willing and able.  I know me.  If I shut them out, I will crawl into a dark abyss that will make Winter 2014 look warm and fuzzy.  So, I paused and I reflected on my own words, "If you don't let people help, you take away their opportunity to serve."  After all, I will not be single-handedly responsible for destroying someone's ministry! It is not my place to evaluate friendships, time commitments and spiritual gifts.  If someone wants to do something, let them.  But what should people do for others at a time like this?

I now fully understand why people sometimes decline help, decline those offers to do something.  In a time of physical or emotional crisis, we don't even know what we need.  I can make dinner....well, as much as I ever make dinner.  Day-to-day cooking has never really been my thing.  We can do laundry. I wouldn't want anyone sorting through our underbits anyway. You would know who wears boxers and who wears briefs! Going through our routines didn't highlight anything we "need" help with.  Besides, between Mom's colon cancer (she is in remission) and Dad's bile duct cancer, we've been in a state of chaos for four years. I don't even know what normal looks like anymore.

So, what can people do?  Everyone can keep living and take me with them.  Don't avoid me because you don't know what to say.  Don't say anything. Silence is ok.  We have weather to talk about. Just be there.  If we usually go out to dinner on Fridays, let's go to dinner on Fridays. Help me keep some aspect of my life and that of my family normal.  Don't assume I'm too busy to participate, to fulfill my obligations and ministries.  I need those things to stay sane.  In other words, don't take away my ministry while you are ministering to me.  Don't worry if I hermit once in a while, but don't let me disappear. 

Most of all, pray. Pray for all of us.  I've never been one to successfully memorize scripture, but I must have learned the key ones because they pop into my head when needed.  I'm resourceful. I can then locate them in the Bible.  Today, all I wanted was peace.  I teach high school.  There is no peace.  But I longed for a different peace, and there it was, the weekly benediction from my childhood church. "May the peace that passes all understanding be in abide with you this day and forvever more." I have not heard that pastor say those words in 25 years, yet there they were, taken from Paul's letter to the church at Phillipi.

I turned to Phillippians 4:7, and read, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (NIV). That's the peace I crave, a deep-rooted sense of calm that can only come when God is in control. That is what I need right now. Reading the verse before it tells us how to get there. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in evry situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Pray for peace, for God's peace. Pray it for all of us."

I wish we never had experiences like what we are going through right now, but I also wish i had understood them a little bit more when in the past I have asked, "What can I do to help?"  There will come a time for physical needs to be met.  Right now, pray. Pray for peace.

We all will be cured

As I sit here with a stomach bug and the chills, I realize that I will get better, yet so many others won't.  At least they won't here on this earth.  It is heartening to know that all of our worldly ills are just that - of the earth.  They will not follow us to heaven.  I do not profess to be able to explain what heaven will be like, but I will go out on a limb and say that it won't involve nausea, fever, cancer, or any of the other ailments we suffer that range from nuisance to deadly.

By the grace of God, modern medicine has given my Dad two-and-a-half years (and counting) since his diagnosis with bile duct cancer.  Thirty months of chemotherapy, nausea, surgery - he has been through it all.  The bad days are starting to outnumber the good ones, a time we all knew would come. He is not giving up. We are not giving up on him.  We can't. To give up on the man who has been my superhero for almost 44 years would be paramount to treason.  After all, my dad can do anything. 

In reality, none of us can do anything. Every accomplishment, every miracle is a gift from God.  We make mistakes, we repent, we are forgiven, through the blood on the cross that Jesus shed for us. Without Christ, we do nothing. Without Christ, we are nothing. Sometimes, that miracle - that gift - is revealed on Earth amidst the sin and suffering of the world.  Sometimes, it is reserved for a time after our departure from this world.

I selfishly vacillate between praying Dad be released from his pain, even if that means he leaves us, and pleading with God to cure him, or at the very least to allow him to maintain right here where I can see him, talk to him, be with him, where my kids can be with Grandpa even if he's not up to fishing and hunting right now.  Then I pray for forgiveness of my selfishness. Then I ask God to do His will, even though what I want is really My Will.  Then I ask for forgiveness for that.

I cannot satisfactorily explain why bad things happen, at least not in terms the world would understand. It's part of a plan so much bigger than we are.  Sometimes, a great deal of good can come out of a tragedy, out of an illness.  I, however, know I am tired of making lemonade.  I've never been a fan of the stuff.  It's something I can do without, but I have all these lemons....

Difficult situations are heart-wrenching and frustrating.  We are human beings trying to analyze a plan the God of the Universe has in motion. And we wonder why we get frustrated?  It would be like an ant trying to figure out why the people keep cleaning the sugar off the counter. Things look good, then BOOM, it's gone. Sometimes, the sugar is left out.  What a blessing!  God could just leave us sugar cubes all over the place.  The problem is most of us would not recognize them as blessings.  We would take them for granted and eventually ignore them and their provider.  

Unless we needed to make some lemonade....