For Worse As Well

One pastor relates a personal story of a radical change in her life at a time when the timing was awkward, the consequences life-changing, and the outcome unpredictable. After a week of sharing duties at the hospital for her son, caring for a young daughter at home, and the busiest week at church for which to prepare, she walked into church Psalm Sunday with a heavy heart. One of the members preparing to join the church that morning asked her how she was, and impetuously she told the truth. Ironically, sometimes at church we feel uncomfortable to tell the truth. We feel we need to be a “Stepford” Member, exuding smiles, confidence, and control. It can’t be the right place to mention our own errors in judgment, doubts and failings. What kind of reference to personal character and church functionality would that send? But because life had superseded her plans, and she was too tired to hold character, the pastor told how she felt without sugar-coating the issue or lessening its reality. He ended up being exactly the right person to listen.

His friendship changed our lives in the years that followed, and none of that would have happened had we not been joined together in the body of Christ, not just in our good news but our bad…. He probably thought that he was joining the church that day because he needed it; but sometimes the reason you are joining the church is because somebody there, needs you.

My prayer for the congregation?

Loving God, You bear all. Teach us to trust that our church family is a place to share our weaknesses and faults along with our gifts and dreams. We hold ourselves to a higher level of judgment than we impose on others, and we determine our guilt and enforce penalty before allowing others to get a glimpse of our burden. But there is no hiding our lives from you. You are able to position healers for our injured souls, giving rest for the weary and teaching compassion and service to the supporter. Both roles have to be filled; we have to receive help to allow another to give help. Let us humble our pride and be reborn in mercy. Amen.

Some resurrections are enormous and get recorded in scripture to be read year after year. Other resurrections are smaller. They happen in the midst of ordinary lives. We witness one another’s resurrections in church all the time.

The entire account is worth exploring.