What do you day to a woman as you sit in her home as she weeps? What words can take away the pain of losing her husband, sister, and father less than a month ago? Those are questions that I faced during one of our home visits yesterday. Sometimes the words we say seem empty; they sound nice but not enough for the way we are feeling.
As a few of us shared different verses and scriptures from the bible, the woman covered her face with her wrap and wept. She was a believer but was feeling alone having lost her family and now left with three teenage children to raise by herself. More than the verses we read to her she said she was grateful that we were there with her; that she had someone to talk to. After talking with her a bit more about the many verses where God talks about giving us strength and asking us to give Him our burdens, we encouraged her to seek her church family for support. We then prayed for her and said our goodbyes. It is so hard to know that I have to leave each place at the end of the month and don’t have the option of building a relationship with them. That got me thinking about if I would have done things differently had I been at home.
Are there people around us who are going through difficult times? We could all probably answer yes to that. Perhaps you are that person and you can relate to the woman in my story. What are we doing to support our neighbors? Both in Deuteronomy (10:18) and James (1:27) talk about how it is our obligation to look after the orphans and the widows. Are we doing that? What is our response when we hear of someone in church, at work, or in our neighborhood who is going through a rough time in their life? A common thing is to tell them you’re praying for them and continue on. Am I saying that prayer isn’t good or isn’t enough, not at all. Prayer is the most powerful thing we can do for them.
Far too often we hide behind our prayers. It becomes easier to pray than to reach out. I don’t want to be someone who talks that talk but doesn’t walk it. “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him.” Titus 1:16 I don’t want that to ever be able to said of me. I want people to see my God through my words but also through my action in my own life and towards others. “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by actions, is dead.” James 2:17
So how is your neighbor doing? Maybe it’s time to take a look beyond our own problems (we all have them) and see if we can visit a friend or go sit with a neighbor. Let’s step out and show people Christ by walking as He would walk.
