For them

There has been a lot of crying out for those around this week, for the centre, for the students, for staff, for our work. And in the process, some peace and calm has come to me. I no longer feel the uncertainty I was feeling last week and earlier, that I needed to know what others, also relating to the same people, are thinking and planning and seeing as good and useful, make sure we're not overlapping.  

I hope it's not just more independence on my part. I hope not. I don't think it is. I think it is more a growing awareness of what my role in the fabric of it all will be. I question. I challenge thinking. I encourage doubts, and I doubt stuff that seems "flaky". 

LORD, I've heard flaky-sounding stuff again this week. Flaky-Christian stuff...at least that's what it sounds like to me...forgive me LORD if I'm judging mocking Your power, not believing what You can do...don't think I am. Somebody kept having fevers...he's from the other side of the province. He came here, back home, and the church decided to pray every noon for a week. And what do you know, on the second day he was healed...no more fever. (but...the fevers had been coming and going anyways...there had already been a long break between....)  Now, two weeks later, word of another fever, seems there was talk of coming back to pray again. Why can't he pray there? Isn't there a church there? And, well he could stay home with his family there while they pray here? And...is there seeking for what God wants to do in all this?  Oh...I had only heard one comment that hinted at some rather weird thinking in my mind...  and it concerns me, the way Christian live, the way we present and believe, in a way that is less than thoughtful. Yes, let's believe, and trust, and follow...

So I continue to cry out to You LORD, lead our work, lead the ideas, the work with other staff, my heart. And I continue to cry out that You will lead their hearts. Help them to become ever more aware of what's going on inside, and what the real needs are, and then find ways to address it.

And birth love among us. In me first. I'm not brimming with "love" towards people that I feel have so disappointed me, but I'm going that way. The anger is less, most of the time...  Our students...do they really learn to care for others via what we do? I see very little of that in their lives. Perhaps they are still so desperately needy themselves, or perhaps I need to really learn it first.