We all can relate this gal above.
You may be far from college, still intimately acquainted or currently trying to forget these days.
Listening, its what I do – all day, every day. It once was lecture after lecture, now its person after person. One by one they file in from dirt floor homes and multi-million dollar estates. Some are calm and calculated others are bursting at the seams. I listen- attempt to digest- make a plan and hopefully allow each person to leave a little better than when they came.
If you are like me you don’t process life in two minutes, (6 minutes to be exact is what im allowed , while making small talk so I don’t seem like a creep behind a computer screen). Life and thoughts like our food need to be worked on and worked through our mind and body.
Today I reached a limit to what I could internalize. I sit and think what Jesus must have felt/ still feels for the world.
He had to carry each worry and fear.
He counseled and consoled
planned and participated
He was attentive to every flinch and cringe.
How heavy, like bag of books heavy, that experience must have been. It is this aspect of my Savior that I appreciated today, only a Holy God has the ability to be eternally empathetic.
I wanted to care, to show excitement for that precious new born. To hold the hand of a man was afraid of his future. To tell the grandma that depression would end. I did. Instead I gave fake condolences and cheap half smiles. Have you been here? Have you ever wanted to give but found an empty….. heart, wallet, empty of encouraging words?
Maybe its this empty that we are supposed to live.
Not E in the fuel tank empty, but the kind where we must depend solely,
better yet: soul-ly
on the victory of the Father.
The battle has been won and its up to you and me to declare this truth in our lives, in the empty places. May I rejoice in the overflowing life that I get the privilege of witnessing and now intervening with daily seeing patient. Rejoice in that a Holy God has carried the burden of the countless patients and is a far better keeper than I ever will be.