Unworthy

Not sure who else I can unload on other than you, dear reader, so here I am. 

I have been trying to do office work today, along with a few other things that come up....things always seem to come up, which is probably why I am several months behind on accounting.

One of the miscellany I was not expecting was Valerie letting me know that a son of a friend tried to commit suicide, and then to ask me to send them some text messages with Bible verses to encourage them. 

I believe my first reaction was to laugh and cry a little inside, look up, and mentally repeat what I had read earlier from a song that happens to start with a Psalm...

"I lift my eyes up, unto the mountains, where does my help come from?  My help comes from You, maker of heaven, Creator of the earth."

It was one of those moments I am usually good at avoiding....I had to go and get personally and emotionally involved, thinking of the horror of the situation and potential reasons behind it.  And then I am asked to send some verses?  Geez, that is something Valerie is good at, why is she asking me?  To get involved some more?  Who am I?  Do I look like I have encouraging verses for a troubled parent in a time like this just right on the tip of my tongue?  Like Charlie Brown, I felt a cartoon balloon rise filled with "good grief" 

Why does anyone ask me anything?  Is it not obvious I am unworthy?  That I suck at this?  That there has got to be someone out there with more on the ball, more spiritual, more caring, more..."better" in general? 
 
Sometimes I wonder why I am not more emotional, more engaged, more involved.  I can maintain a disconnect most of the time, to handle the technical or other details of an otherwise described emotional/spiritual situation.  A time like this reminds me that, while not something I would say is a virtue, it does protect me in a way from just going over the edge in all the stuff going on around us, in the mission, and that I am somehow responsible for answering/addressing, as in that area, among many...I am weak.

I do not write for pity or sympathy, more just to be honest.  People build up people in my line of work from time to time...something not fair to them or us.  I hear "you guys are the ones on the front lines" sometimes, meant as a compliment and likely some sort of encouragement, but the truth is that we who are in Christ are ALL on the front lines...the battle surrounds us all. 

Different battles, battlefields, languages, cultures, etc...but all the same battle.  If you think you are not...then you are missing the spiritual fight God has for you to wage.

I do not think I am a very good warrior...at all.   So my verses to encourage myself today would include Job 40:4-5 and 42:2-6, the Psalm I already mentioned (121) and I Corinthians 1:26-30

²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”^[


I sent our friend some verses.  They...in their hurt, sorrow and struggle wrote back.  "Thank you for all your support, God bless you always!" 

Another struggling warrior...fighting their battle, encouraging this unworthy one to do the same.