Feed our Souls

I attended a church service late yesterday afternoon, invited by a friend who is heading on a mission trip this week, to Honduras. This service was a commission of prayer for those leaving the country to spread the word of Jesus and to do God's work. I was merely present, a source of support for my friend, who will make her third or fourth mission trip. Unknown to me, the service was a regularly scheduled one, held every Saturday at 4:30, to help accommodate the average weekend attendance of 1500 people. That is amazing to me when so many churches are striving to find what it is that lures folks to worship, 1500 people each weekend! Naturally, I was intrigued. Intrigued by the warm welcome, the high techno world inside the sanctuary, and the display of tables for coffee and punch and snacks, strategically placed for fellowship and comfort. You step in and you are not really sure what is about to take place. What took place for me was a much needed message of God's grace being sufficient, being there for the asking and for the receiving. Not a new concept to me at all, it seemed, though, to have a different twist. Maybe I was just ready for the message, led to this particular service on a Saturday afternoon when there were so many other things I could have been doing, sitting by a friend's pool, going to the winery, cleaning my house, finally unpacking from my recent trip to my sister and brother-in-law's, whatever...instead, I didn't hesitate when invited, and I know God had a reason for my attendance.

I think He wanted me to know that I have been trying to do all of this alone, again. As my brother-in-law battles through the pain and fatigue and side effects of chemotherapy in preparation for a stem cell transplant for multiple myeloma, and cancer has invaded more directly, once again, I find myself relying on my own resources and experiences as I try to sort it all out. As my sister, who I have dubbed "caregiver extraordinaire'" juggles and maneuvers through the many demands of her new found role, I, again, rely on my own experiences as the caregiver to Allison, to my father, and I empathize so completely, that I carry some of the burden, unnecessarily. My own belief and understanding of letting God take control has been overshadowed by my need to DO something, or take some of this away for those I love. But I cannot. What I can do, is let go and let God carry the burden. His grace is sufficient and He will carry this for all of us.

I was struck, yesterday, thinking that finally I know some of the problem I have faced of late...when grief has struck me down, again and again, and I don't want to face another summer, another birthday, another day without Allison, when my pain is almost unbearable to the point that I feel I, myself, have a chronic illness. It is then that I realize that I have not spent as much time working to be sanctified. Reading God's word and prayer and meditation has given way to activities, mental as well as physical, allowing negativity to flow, and the burdens of others to completely weigh me down. I don't mean family burdens, I mean the burdens that are not life threatening and that are minuscule and not pertinent to my positive state of mind and body.

I must work for change. Now, I know it is not the works that give us God's grace, but it does take work to know God, to strengthen the relationship, to understand and be sanctified. To be transformed, as I feel I am being, I must renew my mind, and that means to change. Sometimes the change is not welcome by others, friends or family. But it means standing up for what is good and right and needed by myself at the time. I shared with another grieving mother how to protect herself from the exhausting and draining activities of life, and she is doing that, just as I have, and do. In doing so, in declining invitations, passing on the outings, to take care of oneself is not the norm. We want to do those things, but they have suddenly become more difficult, more painful, just different. Nothing is done with ease any longer. In a way, I guess that is why sleep is so restful, emotional exhaustion is a different kind of tired and needs a different kind of rest.

The change also means trading what was once important, like going to the pool, or shopping, and stepping into a new place of worship, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, to hear a message that was so in tuned with what I needed. My advice to my nephew and others, lately, has been to make sure in all the madness and pain of what we all deal with, that we continue to feed our souls. Feed them in the way that works best, with God's words, time in meditation, praise songs, inspirational readings, whatever...we won't get through any of this without our food for the soul.

Food for the soul, to nourish us as we do with food, we cannot live or get through these days of upheaval without it, and I am thankful that the spirit led me to a place where I received just the reminder I personally needed to get back on track. Nothing is going to change, Michael is still going to have cancer, Karen is going to be weary, Allison is not coming back, memories of the pain of cancer are going to linger, but we get today to be here and work for change, and feed our souls.