Helplessness

Started this one last night in the chapel...
Whenever God gives me a theme three times in one week, I think I am supposed to write about it. On Monday, I bring communion to people who can’t get to church. One woman has a paralyzed left arm and she is never out of her wheelchair. When we begin to pray, she works very hard using her good hand to reach down and pull up her limp hand so that she can bring her hands together in prayer. Lately, I have been more brave to reach down and bring her weak hand to her so that she can clasp it during our prayers. She doesn’t seem to mind.

I worry about this because I have a friend who is helping his friend who is losing more and more of his abilities to care for himself. He has a degenerative disease in which he will eventually lose his ability to do anything, including breathing. It is inevitable and my friend is working diligently and with great care to be certain to let his friend to all that he can for himself. What love and respect! How I wish I could be that diligent!

John 21:18 “Amen, amen I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

Ezekiel 34: 11-16
“…I will rescue them from where they are scattered…The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.”

Luke 15:3-7
“…and when he does find [the lost sheep], he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and [carries it home.]...”

Then a beautiful woman both inside and out, I went to see. Her face was bruised and it was obvious she had fallen. My daughters are moving me to an assisted living center. We think it is the best thing to do. Her behavior was reserved. I knew she was scared.

We start off in this world helpless. We are vulnerable. We must depend on others for all of our needs. There is no shame in that for us, because shame is something we learn, after we have grown up and get smart. We learn about what the world expects from us and most of us try to follow the rules, but following the rules is always a choice.

I'm not certain I can follow the rules. Seems my water got turned off again, second time in a year, not because I didn't have enough money to pay the bill, I simply didn't see that as a priority. Priority is praying with a frightened man in the elevator at the hospital today. Priority is praying in the garden. Priority is delivering Communion to people who can't get to church.

Ah, but, like it or not, I still have to live in this world. My dining room table is stacked with papers that claim, immediate attention needed. And I will have to get to them. Eventually.

But not today.

My hands are so hot, I can barely stand them. I want to place them in a bowl of ice. Maybe it's just hormones raging. I just know I witnessed more than one miracle this week. And perhaps so much love that, if it was a physical object, would not fit within the walls of my church. Nor should it.

The encounters I have with people are such holy moments. I pray that you have them too. I see the world changing, one person at a time...and that is how it is done.

One person at a time.
Being vulnerable.
Remaining open.
Saying yes.
Risking love.
Holding hands.
Listening.
Receiving.
Then giving it all away.

That's the gift of helplessness.

For when I am weak, You are strong.

Love,
Cindy