Walking with a Limp

It is interesting to me.  I have been pastoring for close to twenty years.  I've preached in a variety of settings, led churches to venture into all kinds of stuff, and walked through valleys with folks many times.  The one thing that I believe has created the most profound markers in my ministry (points on my personal timeline)  are some of the deaths that I have wallowed through with family and friends.  I buried a 3 year old one time that I believe took years off my life.  I sat in an ICU waiting room for 36 hours while a 21 year old was dying after a car wreck and then escorted the family in to say goodbye. I have stood over a drug overdosed body while his Momma said goodbye and then left to go lead my church in revival. What a rollercoaster!  I have come home from vacation twice for senseless suicides. I've led the private funerals for families that lost their new child before they were ever able to hear the baby cry.  And now I find myself in a spot like that again when a darling 16 year old left a stop sign a little too early.  I am humbled by the opportunities that God gives me, amazed by how He walks with me, and slowed more by the pain of others than my own.  This is an interesting thing...this thing we call ministry.  Please don't misunderstand.  I do not mean to list some hall of fame of tragedy here.  If you are in ministry long enough, you will face all this stuff.  Every community does.  I am just reflecting out loud on a computer screen.  Why?  Because I realize that like when Joshua led the people to put down memorial stones  in the bed of the Jordan River to mark the path that God had led them on, I am now planting another rock on my path.   These are the things that you never anticipated in ministry yet mark you more than maybe anything else.  So today I'll unearth another spiritual stone and mark my path with the reflection of a sweet, precious teenager that we feel was taken too early.  I will walk away with a limp like Jacob did in his wrestle.  However, I will always be grateful, not for tragedy, but the small part that God and the grieving allow me to play as I try to provide a little comfort along this sometimes very painful road called life.

Josiah is such a blessing this morning.  Oh, that God would raise up a reformer for America as He did for Judah.  He became obvious during his reign that the key problem was the Word of God was misplaced.  Josiah, in response, told his assistants to- Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that has been found...to do according to all that is written in this book.- 2 Chronicles 34:21.  In God we Trust and In His Word We Find our Guidance.  Don't neglect him today and pray for those who are hurting.