Compassion

Feeling a little brokenhearted today. I'm healthy. My family is healthy. We're all thriving. But all around me is despair. When I close my eyes I might even feel the agony and hopelessness of the world echoing within my soul. The blind cry out for relief from their sorrows and grope for the cross that remains just out of reach. Others with clear vision call on their Savior, their reason for hope, but He shows them more trouble.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5, "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ"

When I was sick so many people wanted to help that I felt supremely guilty that I couldn't come up with odd jobs for them. It was silly--they felt a burden to help in a tangible way, and praying didn't seem tangible, so I felt a burden to help them ease their burden in a tangible way. We were all wrong. We should have just prayed together. Prayed more. Every time we inhale and feel a burden we should exhale with a prayer. But...it's hard to pray! It's hard to care deeply for someone, to rest their problems on your shoulders and have no way to lift them off other than to lift them up in prayer. And let's be honest, when we do all that, many times we don't see a real answer. We don't feel the Lord's presence. He doesn't do "little" things like resolve social situations for our kids. He doesn't do big things like blow the Holy Spirit down to breathe life into a dying child. He doesn't heal most people's cancer.

It's hard not to take these unanswered (or differently answered) prayers personally. To keep praying, trying, crying, day after day. Sometimes it seems impossible to stir up enough passion to even want to intercede in faith for another. But that's when we need to remember. We remember the faith from our youth. We remember the prayers He did answer from the past. With every gut wrenching blow we feel from receiving bad news, we will remember how the King felt when Judas kissed his cheek. When I hear my own voice bitterly complain about circumstances being unfair, I will remember how He felt each time the crowd of people He loved and cared for screamed, "Crucify Him". And every time I wonder, "What's the point?" of praying for someone, I will look around and take note of the empty tomb. The cross was enough.

Lamentations 3:22-24, "The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease. For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning: Great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion" says my soul. "Therefore I have hope in Him"...

Death

I'm close to a breakdown...not sure I can handle this...I just learned someone I knew in college recently died. Of cancer.

Yaacov didn't understand the magnitude of the situation, which means you all reading this probably won't either. That's part of the isolation of the ridiculous disease. Especially in my situation--hardly anyone my age can relate to having a terminal illness at all, because, well, there aren't many of the and they die before we can really "bond". So that stinks, and then when you throw in that I was miraculously healed, it's even harder to find people that "get" it. Not that I'm complaining, really. 

There's something about being told time and again that you're going to die soon that changes you. I used to think it was like teaching English as a Second Language--you don't have to speak multiple languages to teach the new one. But I'm pretty sure that in this case you have to live through it or have some really, really, really awesome insight straight from God to get it. 

That said, most people don't have the ability to turn from a happy thought into a mess of tears because someone they barely knew is dead. I have that ability, and right now I don't want it. It's like I'm living his death. I already lived my own, you know. It's not much easier this time. If he had died in a car accident or something, I probably wouldn't be too upset. But the second I read "cancer" I knew. I knew what it felt like for Jim to hear the diagnosis for the first time. For him to hope and pray for good test results. To hear bad news instead. To hope and pray for the miracle. Without ever having set foot in a hospice, I knew how it felt to have to move there, knowing it would likely be his last earthly home. Then finally, to hope and pray for a removal of the agony--mental and physical--that the bastard disease caused himself and loved ones. 

I couldn't tell you what color his eyes were, but I know exactly how he felt. And I know he wanted to live as much as I did. I know he deserved to live as much as I did. And I know he didn't. And I did.

I'm so sad. Confused. Surprised. Everyone in the body has a part and I always thought mine was minor. I did hope sometimes for a position of higher impact, but life and death with myself as an example is beyond my capabilities. Why aren't I called to be a beacon of hope for something lighter? Simpler? Easier? Less painful, perhaps? 

"After he was healed, the man...begged Him that he might be with Him. However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, 'Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had compassion on you." Mark 5:18-19

I am quite certain the scripture above is a direct command for me, so I will keep doing it. It's not particularly hard with the right audience, but what can I say to people grieving from actual loss? "See how healthy I am?!" 

I know it sounds so ungrateful to complain, when I'm still alive, but I don't know how many more deaths I can live through. I suppose the point is that I am utterly unable to perform these duties without the help of the Lord, so when I feel this way I'm on the verge of breaking through--become less so He can become more. So, come on then, God! I'm ready to feel numb again.