I Wish....

*side note - this is my 2000th post! Yup, 2000.*

It's true. Despite many years in ministry, I still come across so many situations where I wish with every part of my being that I could do some serious "fixing" to relieve the suffering of people I so dearly love.

Intellectually, I've known all along that my call and my service in God's name is not to fix anything, but to simply be there. In CPE *shudder* language, it's called the Ministry of Presence. So why is it that in so many cases it just doesn't feel like enough? Why can my mind understand what my heart cannot come close to comprehending?

I suppose this is why I never make a pastoral visit without the words from Philippians whispering out of my lips as I walk down the hallway or knock on a door:

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus"

When the going gets rough, I can stay when others might leave, whether out of fear of their own mortality or something as simple as not wanting to say the wrong thing. I can sit in the muck and mire of the human condition and absorb just enough of someone else's grief so that I can feel true empathy without falling into a million broken pieces.

But really what I want is to fix it all.

There. I said it. Confession is good for the soul and all that.....

This morning I was trying to make something nearing "presentable" out of my disastrous hair, and this song was playing over and over in my mind. It's a beautiful song on its own, but combined with the current yearnings of my heart for people I know who are suffering, and my own eyes staring back at me in the mirror..........it turned into a modern day parable about just how much I need my God and my Creator - the Author of all that is good in this world and the only One who can truly make right all of those things that on the surface seem to be so very broken.