A deep breath

While Luke's MRI results were good, his symptoms continue, so we remain a bit edgy, hoping that the enforced 4 week rest brings healing and not merely an additional delay before surgery.  He's no more patient than I am, so the weeks stretch out, long days away from home and missing soccer.  In the midst of this I cling to several rocks:  the prayers of friends.  The wise kindness of his guardians, dorm parents, and the student health nurse.  The faith that this suffering works weighty glory, somehow. The growing identification with a parental God whose child felt alone in His hour of need in a distant country.  And the mystery that Luke's position pulls me towards my other students with their teenage angsts and their orphanish needs.  Godfrey very nearly ran away from his eye surgery, in a panic of denial and a despair over missing classes (sounding familiar now).  But God completely changed his heart, gave him courage, and yesterday the glaucoma surgery was accomplished.  We are grateful.

And in the background, the inexorable march towards the Masso departure, meetings, handovers, packing.  Watching the kids feel their way through another loss, both ours and even moreso the PIerces'.  Treasuring an hour stolen for conversation, or an evening for the fellowship of a meal.  And further back, the rumors of threats from disgruntled students, the passive-aggressive filthiness of the hospital ward, the gap in political will that leaves crucial positions unstaffed, that lets the road slide weekly into muddier ruts.

Annelise led prayer this week, and one of her two passages was back to 2 Cor 9, the same one that the Spirit had used in our hearts from church this week.  Whenever a particular set of verses comes from two directions simultaneously it is good to listen.  Annelise's meditation was on breathing in God's love to breathe out grace, mercy and peace on others, a rhythm of respiration that sustains our lives.  It is easier for me to sense the exertion of the exhale these days.  So I know the need for the deep breath in, the life-giving spirit filling our lungs.  Here is the Message version:

God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you're ready for anything, and everything, more than just read to do what needs to be done.  As one psalmist puts it, 

He throws caution to the winds,

giving to the needy in reckless abandon.

His right-living, right-giving ways

never run out, never wear out.

Let us gasp in that reckless abundance, and soar.