I often sit with my very dear neighbor, who could be my mother, in that she is 18 years older than I am. I have learned much about this city from her. Much of the history of this island. She corrects my Italian as I periodically mix in some other language or dialect and we enjoy a daily “miranda” which is the afternoon snack around 4:30 PM. I check in with her every day before I leave the house, and every night before I go to bed.
She loves the Lord. She has great faith and at times, I feel she is giving me a preview of my future. She inadvertently turns off her cell data while swiping her phone and is frustrated she cannot send messages so I turn it back on for her. She is stressed that she cannot do what she once did. Her air-conditioner controls are confusing and one is in English, so she spent weeks sweltering as her controls were set to cool the room to the upper 80s and hence did little to assist those of us on the top floor of a stone building when triple digit temps were the norm outside. As we age, we need more time to recover, the importance of staying comfortably cool is greater, and the inability to control that for oneself is even more frustrating.
She reminisces about her family and her life reflectively, at times with sorrow, as her life has not been easy. People are unable to see past the wealth her husband acquired years ago, now long on spent medical tragedies that have devastated their family. She is fully dependent on her stipend to meet her needs but people speak as though she had not a care in the world. She is frustrated by the limitations of age and like us all, is surprised as each year imposes some new limit for which we were unprepared. When she does not sleep she is easily confused and yet mentally she is sharp. Her body is changing as happens to us all, but she senses the sudden change it alarms her. She is a brilliant and gifted woman who wishes to acquire nothing because she realizes life does not go on forever.
She is a vital part of my life, and one of the reasons Jesus has us here. That is a good thing. If you are near a person advanced in years, see yourself as the hands of Jesus to your neighbor.
So to you young pastors out there, take the time needed to sit and listen. The most vital thing you can do at any moment is listen. The media presentation is not as urgent as the profound loss of being needed as we age.
To those of us who are older, we have a purpose, but we must accept the fact our limitations grow with each passing year. That makes us normal, not useless. It is incredibly frustrating, but it is the one result of the fall none of us can escape. We will eventually die and a generation following us will carry on, most of them full speed ahead, until we are suddenly no more, and they realize this too shall happen to them.
No ages are given for those in the Bible for whom the Lord took the time to stop and listen and heal. But I am sure if an old man or woman cried out, they would merit no less of His time or attention than someone younger.
Category: fruit of the Spirit
Gunfire at Christmas
The call came early on Christmas morning. Gunmen, enraged over a tribal dispute, had gone into a church and shot worshipers on Christmas morning. My husband was the mission director for the province where the incident occurred and our breakfast guest the head of a mission’s aviation service. Within minutes my husband and guest were out the door headed to the airstrip. I began to make phone calls trying to contact police, who in the country where we worked, took holidays off, so I spent a lot of time with ringing phones and no answers.
As missions is a creative profession, a “Plan B” was hastily pulled together. Doctors, ambulances and police all took the day off, so we got in touch with a network of Christian workers in Morobe Province who dropped their plans, gathered vehicles and headed 40 miles out of town to the airfield to which the wounded would be taken. Hours passed between the time flights took off to pick up the wounded and bring them to a hospital and the time those planes landed in Lae. The area hospital was offering no surgery on Christmas, or Boxing Day so the wounded had only the medical assistance missionary workers could render on board small aircraft and a lot of prayer on their behalf. The transport took several hours and it was 10 hours between the time my husband left home and when he returned.
That made for a very different sort of Christmas. It was a sunny day and in the southern hemisphere, Christmas is a summer time holiday. There are not many “special occasions” but we made Christmas a very important holiday in our home. Gifts were under the tree and a well prepared meal on which we’d splurged a small fortune grew tepid on the counter. I was home alone with our son, and about 3 PM after six hours of patiently waiting for something Christmas-like to happen he asked me, “Mom, is today still Christmas?” I thought a moment and replied, “Yes, son. Today is why we need Christmas”.
Not every disappointing Christmas is marked by gunfire, but it is not uncommon for Christmas to be a hard time of year for many. This is often greater for Christians who feel an added dose of guilt if they are not enjoying every moment of the holiday in the way they feel they should. It’s as if the joy of the day somehow accentuates the sadness they feel inside and they feel sadder for being sad. I had years when I struggled with the same thing but that Christmas marked by gunfire changed my perspective.
If you are feeling sad this Christmas, celebrate the fact that God knows you in your darkness. He came as Light to the World. He cares about the sorrow and willingly is called “The Man of Sorrows”. He sees our sense of hopelessness and declares Himself, “The Hope of Nations”. He feels our loneliness and comes as “Emmanuel” that we remember “God is with Us”.
Joy is not a feeling, it is a perspective. For all who are filled with laughter and happiness and loving all things Christmas, that is a joy that shall not be taken from them. But there will be Christmas days in life when your feelings will not rise to meet your expectations, when sorrow will be palpable and trouble shadow your celebration. Christmas is for you, too. It is your day as well and the perspective you have on the days when life is not so merry reminds you why He came. It’s a worthy way to celebrate and you appreciate the fullness of Christmas for the times that are not so “merry”. Be thankful for these days too. Your perspective is richer for the lean times and more mature for knowing Him in hard times as well. A joyful Christmas to you.
Things You Did Not Learn in Bible College 