I fell asleep last night thinking of and praying for my friend and his family. His 17-year-old son is a double heart transplant recipient who has been fighting for his life throughout the month of September and later today will have a necessary surgical procedure to address a serious complication.
Because I am old and becoming my grandmother, I heard this morning’s 5 o’clock radio broadcast and the lead report of the president’s and Mrs. Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. It doesn’t matter anyone’s take on a president’s policies and popularity. When the leader of our government contracts what could be a deadly infection (even if the possibility is slight), the news is reason to pause.
Not too long after the radio report, my phone pinged the familiar sound of a new text message. My friend Dave, a fellow pastor and faithful servant of the Lord, required emergency abdominal surgery two weeks ago. The morning text was from his wife. My friend went to the ER in the pre-dawn hours and is being treated for blood clots in both lungs. Sadly, he lives in a city where hospital regulations do not allow his wife to be with him. He’s suffering alone, and so is she.
This morning’s email revealed a return to the enslavement of addiction and the refusal of the captive to receive the help offered to him, leaving those who love him overwhelmed, discouraged, and without answers to their pressing questions.
A quick look at Facebook informed me of my friend’s angioplasty scheduled for later today. Following a heart episode in early September that makes widows of many, he continued to preach two Sunday mornings and multiple funerals. I’m glad he didn’t have a chest grab moment in the pulpit.
I am reminded again of the fragility of the lives we live.
And I probably haven’t written about your experience. Some of you are caring for elderly parents. Many of you must deal again today with the challenges of distance learning, in person learning, or some combination. Frankly, your children’s education has negatively impacted the whole of family life. A few of you woke up in physical pain, will live today in physical pain, and will go to bed in physical pain. Several continue to search for employment, and a number are more than troubled by the prospect of job loss. A lot of you are crying or wishing that crying would help. Many of us just want to run away to any place that will bring relief, if only for a moment. All of us ask, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
We are Christians, and our Lord has left us a Helper who comes to our aid in our times of distress. His normal method for treatment is the prescription of his Word. Here are two texts (of what could be hundreds) given for our healing.
Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
2 Corinthians 4:7-11 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
O Lord,
Today, many of your children feel the woe of living under the curse. We long for your eternal salvation and pray for your temporal deliverance. Would you heal the sick, free the captives, settle the souls of the anxious, strengthen the weak, embolden the fearful, and comfort the sorrowing. All your sons and daughters need your moment-by-moment care. All of us collapse under the load and would succumb without your grace. All your people long to be in your presence where there is fullness of joy and at your right hand where there are only pleasures forevermore.
O Lord, care today for your own as only you can for the glory of your name, for the good of your people, and so we are able to reveal Jesus in our mortal bodies.
Amen
As always, I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.
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Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision