When They Are Ready

Ruth Haley Barton, The Transforming Center, shares the experience of attending the funeral of a young man who was a friend of her daughter. (See http://www.thetransformingcenter.org/pdf/available09.pdf) She shares her thoughtful prayers for the family, her daughter, as well as the pastor who is conducting the service. And not only him, but for all pastors who find themselves in this difficult role of giving ministry to a family in a time of such dark and heavy grief. She asks:

Who is prepared—really—to preside over moments when a family’s life has just caved in and they are being carried away by a rushing river of grief? Who has the strength to hold a space big enough and safe enough to contain the darkest of human loss and emotion? Who has the wisdom to open Scripture in such a way that people find some shred of meaning in what’s happening to them, rather than putting a Biblical band aid on a gushing wound?

Yet it is not only pastors who find themselves facing these situations. It is the Joe or Sally who is following Christ in everyday life that encounters the harsh and honest reality of everyday life. They are the ones who walk with others through these dark valleys. And it was these words from Ruth Haley Barton about our availability to God that arrested my attention because they apply to all of us:

On some days, this kind of availability is the willingness to lay our lives down
as a bridge between the hardest of human experiences and Divine reality.

Even if those to whom we minister are not quite ready to walk across

that bridge, our very presence marks out a path that they might some day take.

It is hard to see or hear God in moments like these. And people are not always ready to encounter God in the great difficulties of life. Those moments may be filled with anger and disappointment. The last thing they may want to hear is about God. However being there for them, i.e. laying down our lives, marks the way they can travel in the future when Jesus will beckon them to come to Him & find rest for their souls. And I believe that His invitation to them comes through us being there for them. Like lights on a runway guiding a plane to safety in the darkness, so our lives (marked w/ our own sadness & hurt) give people a bridge to safety, where they can land, rest and regain their hope - a bridge to GOD.