The wisest words can't heal a broken mind?
The best Doctors and finest medicine can't heal a broken body?
And the kindest gesture can't help a dying soul?
The most beautiful scene can't open blind eyes?
An eloquent speech can't change a hardened heart?
Enchanting music can't ease a tortured mind?
No surgeon can renew an ageing body?
Multitudes of people can't comfort a lonely soul?
No therapy could break through haunted eyes?
The finest wine, sweetest food, strongest drugs, most noble gesture, kindest heart, wisest preach, loveliest scene, cleverest mind, most beautiful tune, closest friend, deepest love, most possible dream....... why is it that all this can't heal a broken man? Can't save a dying soul? Can't free a tortured mind?
This world has no real power.
This world has no real life.
- The above is an extract from my diary a couple of years ago... it was written from a pretty bleak perspective, when i was particularly burdened by some situations a few friends of mine were going through.... and i was thinking about it again today, in light of some new situations that have just been brought to my attention, things people who i love dearly are going through.... although, in essence, it was a pretty depressing stream of thought, i guess my point was simply that sometimes people go through things which it feels like we are almost powerless to help them with, even when we so desperately want to be able to..... but despite that, there really IS still hope.... because God can break into every situation and bring freedom.... i know that to be true, from what i've witnessed in others and from personal experience (i can testify that throughout my life God really has brought me out of some hopeless situations) ... just sometimes, it seems like people are brought to rock-bottom before that happens..... don't ask me why? However, although in one sense sometimes there is little we can do to truly bring freedom to someone else, in another sense i believe that simply being there for them and listening to them can help massively, i think just knowing you're not alone makes a massive difference .... and i reckon prayer does have more power than we might realise too.... personally i'm grateful to every person who has prayed for and listened to me over the years... truly..... i don't think i could have survived alone...... and so, even when it feels like we have little power to change a situation, i guess, despite what i originally wrote, it's good to remember that God does have power... and if He lives in us, then His power can flow through us too.... we can bring Jesus to others, even unknowingly, and that's the best thing we can offer.....so i guess there really is more hope than my initial stream of thought seems to suggest!
"Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." - Psalm 139.12
"He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart." - Psalm 107.14
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." - 2 Corinthians 3.17
And i'm pretty sure i've included this quote before, but it seemed relevant again:
"I try to find something wise and hopeful to say to them, only little by little coming to understand that the most precious thing i have to give them is not whatever words i find to say, but simply whatever, spoken or unspoken, i have in me of Christ, which is also the most precious thing they have to give me." - Frederick Buechner
2 comments:
AMEN!
Well said, Becky.
Thanks.
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