PEOPLE WE CAN'T THROW AWAY

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 15:58)

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”  (Galatians 6:9)

Yesterday morning I bought a Boston Herald to read as I ate breakfast.  I read something in the paper that really troubled me.   In a nationally syndicated advice column, a woman had submitted a question regarding how to handle invitations to baby showers that she really doesn’t want to go to.  This woman can’t emotionally handle going to baby showers because she recently had an abortion.  It turns out she had the abortion because the doctor told her the baby she was carrying would be born with serious mental and physical defects.  The woman’s question made me very uncomfortable.  I believe abortion is murder; that it is a very serious sin.  Yet, I believe if I knew I was going to have a mentally and physically defective baby, well, yes, I’d be tempted to want the pregnancy terminated.  I felt very ashamed and uncomfortable even thinking that.  I wished I’d never read the advice column!

During the day, I thought about that advice column.  As strange as this may sound, I believe God had me read it.  My reaction to want to terminate such a pregnancy was a sinful and selfish reaction, but a very human reaction.  Humanly, we don’t want to deal with what’s painful and inconvenient.  This doesn’t just apply to pregnancies.  There are fully grown people that God loves, but who are very difficult to deal with.  The human reaction is to send them away.  Remember the Gospel account when the 5000-plus needed to be fed?  The disciples wanted to send them away.  Their attitude was essentially, “it’s not our problem!”.  Jesus told them differently.  He blessed the loaves and fishes and miraculously fed the crowd, and the rest is history.

This is a struggle for me because being a “people person” does NOT come naturally to me.  God called me to be a pastor.  Sometimes I wonder if He made a mistake.  Honestly, this week I’m in a depressed and introspective mood.  I’m REALLY wondering if God made a mistake!  But He didn’t.  God frequently calls us to do what is NOT natural to us.  He will equip us for His call (I Thessalonians 5:24) but we have to obey Him and follow His directions.  

This week a woman with Ausgerber’s Syndrome called me. (I’m not sure if I spelled the name of that syndrome correctly!)  I’ve never met her but she was worried that in the aftermath of the Lincoln-Sudbury High School incident people would think she is a monster capable of murder.  She’s “different” and she fears rejection and misunderstanding.  

I guess maybe we’re all like that woman.  I am.  As I write, there’s a song playing from the Computer’s iTunes.  It’s Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You”.  The song describes a lonely and needy woman standing on a bridge reaching out to a stranger for comfort and support.  I know Avril Lavigne is only about 22-years-old and a pop singer, but I think there’s a lot of depth and feeling in her songs.  This one is so true.  

“It’s a d__n cold night, trying to figure out this life, won’t you take me by the hand, take me somewhere new, don’t know who you are, but I’m...I’m with you.”

Yeah.  We all need somebody.  We need God.  We need acceptance.  We need understanding.  We need each other.  Yesterday morning Scott Allen Miller on WRKO spent a good deal of time talking about the Lincoln-Sudbury case.  Miller admitted that as a kid he was a misfit and probably still is as an adult.  Honestly, that’s true of me, too.  Lately several people have left the church and several very challenging  and stressful situations have arisen in the church and in my personal life.  Honestly, I haven’t handled them very well.  As I’ve written, I’m depressed and introspective this week.   Those difficult life situations are why I’m feeling that way.  

In 1970 I jumped at the opportunity to “give my heart to Jesus Christ” and be saved.  I was a messed up 15-year-old.  I was somewhat of a misfit.  I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Today, I’m a struggling 52-year-old minister...struggling because I’m as prone to depression as my late mother was and I’m as prone to irritability as my late father was.  Many times those emotions are pretty much in check.  Once in awhile, it seems like they are just wildly out of control.  For the past several days they’ve been wildly out of control.  Oh, I’ve managed to teach classes, and “m.c.” services, and to be pretty civil in most social settings.  But in my heart, I’m facing those “demons” of depression and irritability  in a stronger way than I have in quite awhile.  I thank God that He does not “abort” me as it were.  He does not reject me because dealing with me and my issues is inconvenient.  And, though I struggle with it, He’s calling me to be “real” with Him and with others and to reach out to others and help them along, just as He does with me.

I hope you can make some sense of this piece.  It’s a hard piece to write.  I’ve revealed even more about myself than I intended to when I began writing it.   And, I’ve got a confession to make:  I had originally written a totally different piece to post today.  That piece presented me in a very good and rather superior light.  I decided to totally scrap it and instead to write about where I’m really at today.

This on-line stuff can lead to some interesting communication.  Whoever you are that’s reading this, as Avril Lavigne says, “don’t know who you are, but I’m, I’m with you”!