Monday, December 3, 2012

Dear God

Yesterday, Brainerd Church of Christ was in charge of the worship service at Martin Boyd Christian Center, and my husband delivered the lesson. He took my suggestion and used a portion of Isaiah as his text –

Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob,
all the remnant of the people of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since your birth,
and have carried since you were born.
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he,
I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46: 3, 4

He spoke of the fact that no matter how long we live on this earth, there is One who has known us since before we were born and will carry us even into our old age.

While we were singing, I heard a dear friend and brother, who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, singing bass behind me. I started to cry. I love this man, and do not understand why he and his wife must watch him slowly decline into helplessness. I am in awe as they continue to serve others and remain cheerful.

After the service I helped a resident in a wheel chair get back to her room. When we reached it, on her door was a sign recognizing her for her service in the military during world war two. This frail, ninety-two-year-old woman had served in the Marines, no doubt dealing with unbelievably difficult conditions.

She is staying at Martin-Boyd because all of the caregivers in her family are either dealing with their own illnesses or having to care for others. Her only son and daughter are battling rare cancers, cancers that took her husband twenty years ago.

She talked of possibly “going home” before Christmas to stay with her daughter who is now in isolation recovering from a stem cell transplant. She ended by saying, “I never expected this. It’s too much.”

I tried to encourage her with my conviction that cancer, in my generation, has become survivable, and told her of my mother who at ninety is a thirty-year breast cancer survivor. But her situation chilled me to my bones. Life does not get any easier as we grow older. It gets harder. So hard that sometimes it is “too much.”

Scripture tells us “His burden is light,” but Dear God?

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 admonishes us to “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” When I remember to do these things and turn my heart toward bearing others’ burdens, my own seem light in comparison, but don’t let anyone kid you; life is a battle, and, by God’s grace we will fight until the day we die.