powerless

Powerless. I hate to admit it almost as much as I hate being it. Unfortunately, it's what I am right now in so many areas of life. I just got off the phone with my sister. She called crying, telling me how horrible things in her life were right now and how depressed she was. She was afraid of failing classes and didn't even care--thereby making her depression worse. I listened for a long time, asked a couple of questions and prayed with her. I didn't know what to say except that I would be praying with her and that, somehow, everything would be all right. God never promised answers to everything. He only promised He would never forsake us and would carry us through the roughest of storms. When I hung up the phone, I felt powerless.

Powerless. One of my best friends is dealing with heartache right now. Her cousin's husband is passing away as we speak. He's battled cancer for years now and is now losing the battle. You can see it on my friend's face--sorrow, grief and stress. Amidst the situations she's enduring, she must continue with school and work. I wish I could take her pain away and help her, but I'm powerless. All I can do is listen, offer up a corny joke or two and pray for her and her family. When I hung up the phone tonight, I felt powerless.

Powerless. It is really an ugly word. Few of us like it. None of us like being it. Yet we find ourselves powerless in so many of life's situations. Events spin out of our hands quicker than we can blink and we stand there or lay there trying to make sense out of the madness. Some of us openly cry out to God, seeking answers and peace. These know they can do nothing themselves and seek God and their community for healing. Others--such as my sister, take the opposite approach and blame God and yell and scream like Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump. Thankfully, our God is big enough to handle our anger and frustration and graceful enough to pick us up. Still others--including myself, internalize the pain, the sorrow and the grief and deal with it in our own way. We have the hardest way--opening ourselves up (which is totally against our nature) to God and our community and admitting we are in need.

Please don't think I'm posting this to complain to all of you who are reading. Rather, let this be my opening my heart to you, putting some prayer requests out to you and then helping us deal with life together. Right now, I believe each of us are either just finishing a trying (read: crappy) time in life, going through a trying (read: crappy) time in life, or are about to go through a trying (yep, read: crappy) time in life. When we go through these times, we feel powerless. We must remember that God doesn't promise answers--only that we would never be alone and would be carried through the trying, crappy, and painful times in life.

until Christ is formed in us... (and the pain and struggles in life ends)

--mike