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Minutes of Meetings with God |
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The Letter ... |
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| There have been a number of things that have been swirling around
in my head as I've been attempting to write this. I will admit to having
some considerable difficulty in deciding which of those things to focus upon.
I was seriously considering writing about our recent healing service. It
was a deeply moving time of worship and of meeting with our Risen Lord. And,
then, I was all set to share some things that had learned at the Town and
Country Church Leadership Training retreat ... that is where I was on Monday
and Tuesday of last week. About the time that I thought I knew
what I would be writing, I came home to discover that the postman had brought
me a very unusual letter. Let me say that I am not often surprised by getting unusual letters. Unusual letters come my way up to several times each month. Another recent letter was from a self-styled prophet who wanted to be sure that I was ready for the "end times" Other unusual letters solicit support or funds for unusual (usually, misguided) causes ... or to save the church or nation or the world from uniquely terrible disasters. This letter was just different. It came in a hand lettered envelop. It was a photocopy of a handwritten letter ... I presume because the person sent copies to other pastors in the western part of Monroe County. It was the content of this letter that struck me hard. The letter follows: Pastor: I have a chemical imbalance. I have severe thoughts of suicide. Please keep me and my family in your prayers until I am cured. Pray for my doctor also. Yours in Jesus, Thank you The letter was anonymous ... the only identification that the writer supplied was two initials. Most of the unusual letters that I get find their way into the "round file" immediately. I could not bring myself to throw this particular letter away. The letter says almost nothing and it says almost everything all at once. There are no details, but there is intense desperation ... and some level of trust and hope in the power of prayer as well as the love of Jesus. The letter is a cry from a person teetering on the edge of that horrible abyss called despair. I find myself thinking about this anonymous person a couple of times a day and whispering a little prayer for the safety and healing of whoever he or she is. One of the reasons that this letter won't let go of me is because I see more than a little bit of myself in it ... more than a little bit of all of us in it. How many times do I (do we) feel so horribly overwhelmed ... so terribly near falling over the edge into some kind of insanity ... so desperately afraid of not being able to take "it" anymore ... so painfully alone ... so powerfully tempted to doubt whether life is worth living??? How many times do l (do we) want to reach out for help ... how many times do we want to cry out our hopelessness and our hurt ... but like the person who wrote the letter, we are also too terrified to let anyone know how badly we feel?? After all, what would our family, friends and neighbors think of us if they knew what horrible shape we are in underneath our veneer of health and success? And so we suffer anonymously. Yet in all of this tempest, all of this fear and all of this doubt, somehow a tiny seed of hope and faith pushes its way through. Like the anonymous letter writer, we hang on (be it ever so desperately) to some trust in the power of God and in the presence of our Risen Lord, Jesus... we know that if someone is praying for us, even if that someone does not know our name, then we are not all alone and we are not totally helpless... However, when we insist on being anonymous in our pain, most often we deny ourselves access to the most concrete expressions of the presence and love of Jesus that we can experience ... those expressions that come our way through the people who would reach out in love to us in the Spirit of Christ. These are people who not only pray for us, but who take on some of our load ... they shoulder our yoke ... so that we can make it through our time of trouble. To be a Christian is to seek the compassion and comfort of God and, as much as we are able, bring comfort to the lives of others. I think the Apostle Paul said it best: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows (II Cor. 1: 3-5). 1 think that J just saw the mailman stop at our mail box ... I wonder what he brought today ...? |