Life and string

Nothing quite like being at the end of the string... the yo-yo string. We are still waiting for definite dates for our Houston trip and surgery. It has been September 1, then the 15th, then the 22nd, then back to 15... hope we find out in time to get flight plans made!

In all of this, we are trying to be sure we're ready for school and well prepared for those who will take our places for the couple of weeks that we will be gone. Both of us are teaching as well as T working the admin responsibilities. He chose this year to teach a Bible class that will provide concurrent university credit. Of course he did... never fails right? This whole thing can get rather crazy, trying to figure out what is the right thing to do and exactly when to do it. Through this process, we have reconnected with people from our past, people who are suffering far more than we, who have traveled this road repeatedly, people who find themselves in rather dire circumstances. It is a specific society of maimed citizens who have been cut, poisoned, burned - to be cured. A society of the truly needy. Citizens who understand each other completely. And we have so much to learn from them and maybe an opportunity to help as well.

Among my readings each morning is an Irish Jesuit web-site: Sacred Space. My daughter-in-law's younger sister mentioned it in her blog several years ago and it has become a real go-to place for me. This week, the writer refers to what Jesus is doing as he heals and what he learns from those to whom He ministers, like this:

"... most movingly, Jesus’s own human consciousness is challenged and stretched by a complete outsider, the courageous Canaanite woman, whose little daughter is tormented by a devil. In his human consciousness, he learns from her something he had not fully grasped before - about the expansion of his ministry beyond the confines of Israel. As a result of her courage, after his initial hesitation he reaches out to her, and cures her little child. ‘You have great faith’, he says to her in utter admiration (Matthew 15:28). So, in my prayer of quiet, let me think of the strangers, the ‘different’ people I have encountered, who have perhaps challenged my faith perspective, and called me to look at things in a new way. Perhaps, in some of those meetings, God was especially coming to me, calling to me, expanding the horizons of my heart." 

And so we think of the people we have encountered and pray that the Lord will be close to them. May He bring comfort and blessing, healing and wholeness. May He allow all of them to know Him more deeply and realize how very much He loves them. May they be blessed and healed, inside and out.