In my morning devotional this weekend I found this quote:
"We live a life that cries out for healing in a world that keeps our wounds open"
Serving the church means serving an movement that is trying to be a place of love and healing and it often is. Sunday my sermon was about the ways that we are trying to reach out to others.
At the end of the service we sang "Here I Am, Lord." Again, Doug came forward - not to join the church but to receive prayer. I asked Joe to come forward and we laid hands on his shoulders and I asked the congregation to place hands on each other's shoulders as we prayed our closing prayer.
The thing about working in the church is that we encounter people very up close and personal who are in situations that are very, very hard and our role may just be to stand with them. Period.
I think I wrote about Doug before. He is 55 years old and now lives in a nursing home. He had a stroke and he cannot go back to work. He has some issues mentally. But he is so unhappy where he is. So he comes forward and we pray for him and hope that somehow he experiences God's presence and our love for him.
He returned to church after the gospel praise service at 7:00 P.M. At this point I am ready to go home. It has been a long day. The nursing home where he lives is right down the street from the church. So I sat with him for about 20 minutes and heard his stories about life in the nursing home and invited Chuck (God bless him) to join me.
He talked about his 57 year old roommate who is in a wheelchair and has neurological problems after an accident and about the 102 year old man he like to eat with. This guy sounds pretty feisty. He talked about how the nurses withhold ice, of all things. And how you have to wait for what they have to give you. And much of his conversation is entertaining, but the truth is that I still wanted to go home and have dinner. And so, I asked Chuck to take him back to the nursing home over his objections. But that's what I needed to do.
There are some things I know. That ministry is daily, that love is listening and that there are times to set boundaries. But none of this is easy.
I write this remembering Sunday morning and my hand on his shoulder and singing "Here I Am, Lord" :
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.
None of this is Easy.
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2 comments:
This post really speaks to some things I learned in grad school and in my work. One is that counseling is usually not about solving problems, but more about acting as a container and "holding" people as they live with challenges and struggles. That said, there are times where a counselor can't hold someone because they need replenishing. There are days when I feel like a wrung out sponge (for lack of a better term) and I need to get re-saturated so I can absorb the pain of others.
What a beautiful quote and stirring reflections...!
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