(I was gonna avoid blog overload and just post the most recent one I wrote this morning. Then I realized they are all tied together. So get ready for a trio of blogs! This one was written almost a month ago and got lost in the World Race life of traveling continent to continent.)
They offer superficial treatment
for my
peoples mortal wounds…
Jer 6:14
I don’t think I’ve written a whole lot on “ministry� lately.
Maybe because when we label our “ministry time�, my mind shifts.
On an amazing and impactful trip to Honduras in ’07, our
impact in the week we “ministered� was equated to putting a band aid on a
hemorrhage. (Oh yeah, this was a medical trip so the analogy was well-accepted
and added plenty of imagery for all of us.)
Hemorrhage: Excessive discharge of blood from the blood
vessels; profuse bleeding. A copious loss of something valuable.
I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a struggle for me to be fully
engaged in ministry. Body and head there, sure. Although at times this month
while I was with my team, getting my body there was a struggle due to sickness.
But part of it, besides my physical sickness, was a heart posture a little
offset from ministry.
Most of the time I have no problem seeing the affect of what
this year is about with the lives of those on O squad. I’m with them. I speak
their language. I fight for showers and bed space and room to change with them.
I see and hear the amazing works God is doing in their life day in and day out.
It’s insane, so exciting, so God.
During our ministry time though, I think my heart has been
studying this hemorrhage of a world a bit more. It’s been wondering, searching
and asking-in the middle of daring for more-what “more� looks like and what more
I can do without offering superficial treatment for mortal wounds…
I have this picture in my head-well, two actually. One from
Scrubs where J.D. is standing in the middle of the hospital, eyes closed,
trying to massage the chaos out of his head while everyone is flowing, running,
moving around him. (Season 1-too impatient to find an image online).
The second mental picture is me standing in the middle of a
trauma room (not a good place to be standing still) while everyone else is
moving on with their role-IV in the right AC, BP and HR check, pt on the
monitor, warm blankets, fluids…And for the moment, I’m standing. Waiting to
figure out how to jump in when I feel like all I’m holding is a band-aid for a
hemorrhage.
