A. (bis)
I’m bummed. And a little angry…
A., my relatively new, 67-year-old friend, is in the hospital again. To visit him you put on a sterile “blouse” and mask then disinfect your hands. The leukemia has completely destroyed his immune system. He experiences extreme fatigue, some paralysis, but the pain is mostly under control.
We spent 10 minutes together as he kept dropping off to sleep. The time to talk more seriously about eternal things never arrived, a promise he’d made to me two weeks ago (during one of Federer’s Australian Open matches). Now I doubt that time will come.
As communicated in a past post, the sickness has completely deformed his visage. Now it’s sapped his strength. And the habit of saying “no” to God, or maybe just “later”, seems to have won out on this one.
I sometimes, maybe even often, doubt the power of God. But turning to the Creator in prayer for A. is so… not spiritual… but natural right now, and the right thing to do.
Thanks for stopping by.
posted by Brady @ 4:42 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
"Good friends" can sometimes doubt and even be mad with each other. I know in my own life when I've doubted or been mad at God, He was always there for me as He is for you now.
Our prayers are with you and A.
I certainly don't doubt God… It's not an intellectual thing, but a confidence issue. Much more existential. And I'm not angry at him. I angry at the situation, angry at death, which may not be the right response.
I'm so sorry, Brady.
I've been studying the temptation scene lately. I've found myself frustrated in the past that Jesus just let Satan "walk away." My Quinn-Martin TV drama inspired mind wants him to put the smackdown on him before returning to the disciples. Instead he just turns him down and then leaves him to do his worst to us.
Free will is a gift I'm none too crazy about sometimes, until I try to imagine how I'd feel as a puppet on strings. It is a far more courageous way for God to secure our obedience.
Just wanted you to know that I'm praying for both of you.
"Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man opens the door, I will come in ..."
You know that Jesus has been knocking on A.'s door a long time. He has not given up. Keep visiting, keep knocking. Something may yet happen. But if not, that doesn't mean that something NEVER happened. A. has been living a pretty long time. Who knows what God has sown in his heart, or what long-buried seed is sprouting there in the midst of dying?
As for confidence, yes, I understand. I think of the disciples struggling to heal a young man when Jesus returns from the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus disciplines them, but not because they lack faith in HIM, (after all, they know He can heal), but because they don't really believe they have any power (or that God has given them any power). But we do have power, power to trust that God has worked in A., that God is working there. God has not forsaken A.
Keep knocking, too. We all knock with you, in prayer.
BG
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