Ever feel like you are just totally out of practice for
doing things that used to come so natural? Enthusiasm and then action has waned.
Or worse than that, that what you have been practicing has at times become so “old
hat” that it seems to be a meaningless “by rote” activity without substance? Like
occasions of scripted encouraging words and prayers that sound hollow, as if
spoken over a bad phone connection? Harboring an acute case of “the blahs” that
borders on becoming chronic? Am I the only one? (Any anonymous responses to
validate that I am not alone will be appreciated.)
I had occasion to briefly
speak with and pray for a dear soul recently as she was recovering from a
serious health episode. Here I was thinking I was the encourager, but her subsequent
words proved of more worth than any I could have said or prayed.
She began to speak with such a candor about her seemingly “backslidden”
state. She reported she’d not been to church or active in her faith for quite a
while. She chose trustingly to disclose that perhaps in the midst of her crisis
God was calling her back.
She recollected with great gratitude the times God
had been gracious to her, and divulged how God had used her former waywardness,
His extreme mercy, and her outspoken ways to be a beacon for many poor souls
who nobody else reached out to. She talked of her former pastor with direct and
sincere honor. She blazed with an honest rendition of her appreciation for her
God, the One who loved and accepted her despite her crude honesty and actions with
Him and others. She described new perceptions to me of how God views and uses everyone.
She exuded a zeal for Him that I had not felt for a while. She caused me to
rethink who was really helping who.
I watched as she talked herself back into the arms and grace
of the Lord. And I left humbled by this precious so-called backslider, and
grateful that while God may have sent me into her hospital room, it was so that
I could leave her room a bit more healthy.
Gratefully HIS,
Jan
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