Today, I visited a woman on her front porch. She had a double mastectomy years ago. Her mother-in-law died Friday from COVID (the third such death connected to Renovation Community or our summer day camp).
A man walked out her front door. This ill man with Liver cirrhosis stays with my friend and her husband. His sister died this morning of bone cancer. On the phone, he left a message at the Memory Care facility where his mother lives. The mother doesn’t yet know. Will she understand when her son breaks the news?
The man walked inside and I continued visiting with my friend. We’re soon interrupted again by a phone call from her cousin, who’s busy planning a funeral. The cousin’s mother died Easter Sunday; her brother died yesterday.
At home, we had our own dinnertime interruption. A person needed help. I provided for their immediate physical needs with a plate of food and arrangements to sleep. But they needed more emotional and spiritual help. They’re near retirement age and see nothing in life went as planned. Wrong turns began years ago with poor choices and continue now with poor health. Current relationships teeter. Tonight they’re so discouraged, I had to receive confirmation they wouldn’t hurt themselves. As we walked together out the Parsonage back gate, our boys yelled goodbye. Once again, Daddy left to “go help someone.”
Last night, I cut off all help to someone else destroying their life with drugs and more lies than I can count. Unless God intervenes, they’ll feel their own Despair and Regret in a few decades.
Life is hard isn’t it? We suffer from hidden illnesses, lose loved ones, lose the health and relationships we took for granted, and make bad decisions.
We don’t always know what someone battles…what Regret they fight or Loss they grieve.
Be kind.
But God ALWAYS knows our battles. He can fight them for us, comfort us in the midst of them, and even prevent us from fighting needless ones. And when the battles hurt us, He knows our pain.
