Trouble Those Waters

This past Sunday, just as I sat down to watch the Yankees game, a car came speeding down the street, lost control and ran into a house on the corner, less than a block away from me.

When I went outside to see what had happened, I noticed that every single parishioner at the church across the street—the House of God—had spilled out into the street and at least half of them were running down the street to the crash site.

I heard someone say that so and so was a nurse and someone else got on the phone to call 911.  I do think it’s interesting that every single person from the church that was running to the accident—was a woman.

The men stayed behind.

And so I found myself privy to this otherworldly sight of all these women in their Sunday best, beautiful dresses, some white, most colorful, hair done up in wraps or set with hats, racing down the street and descending on the car to help whoever was inside.

Yesterday, at a trip to the doctor to address some odd bleeding I have been having, I was told that that I had a very large cervical polyp and that while she didn’t think it looked obviously like cancer, she would do a biopsy and regardless of the outcome, the polyp would eventually need to be surgically removed.

I share this story for two reasons.  One, I share it as a lesson for everyone.  I had been having symptoms for over a year before I went to the doctor.  Don’t do that.  Ultimately, we know our bodies best and when something strange and out of the ordinary begins to happen, we should get it checked out.

Secondly, I share this story because as I was laying there in the doctor’s office, as the doctor and her nurse seemingly asked me every ten seconds if I was okay, until finally I answered, “I’m still conscious”—as I lay there processing what was happening, I kept thinking one thing … why?

Dear God, why?

Haven’t I dealt with enough in my life?

Why?

Honestly, this is a question that we all ask ourselves when something bad happens.  We try not to feel sorry for ourselves but sometimes—my goodness—sometimes it’s just so overwhelming.

And so I turn to Job in our reading today from Job 23:1-12.  Job, of course, is our poster child for suffering.  No one in the Old Testament suffers more and deserves it less.  That is the point of Job.  He had everything.  He was good and faithful and then he loses it all, his wealth, his children, his health.

And in today’s reading, we see Job expressing feelings I think we have all had.  He says, “If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.”

It’s heartbreaking, but something even Mother Theresa experienced for a good portion of her life—not being able to feel God’s presence.  Even if we have faith that He is there, we cannot feel Him.  We cannot see Him.

It is such a common experience for us that it’s the entire point of one of our most beloved poems/prayers “Footprints in the Sand.”

And it is why, as I have said before, we need to make a habit of asking daily where we saw God that day.

One of the first things I did when I got home from the doctor’s was to start sending out texts to my prayer warriors, asking for prayer.  Sometimes our faith is like sediment in a puddle, it settles and seemingly disappears blending into the ground and sometimes when we really need that faith, we have to stir up that water, release that faith, trouble those waters.  Imagine each nearly microscopic piece of sand, of dirt, of rock and clay, imagine millions of those, now swirling like stars in the Milky Way, holding you up—the Angels of God.

That’s what asking others to pray for us does.  It helps us feel embraced by God’s love. 

On Sunday, when I watched all those church ladies racing to the crash site, I couldn’t help but think that I was watching God’s angels respond in real time.  Me, I took a couple of extra seconds, before I walked outside to check to see what had happened, but those women, responded immediately.

And that is how God responds—immediately.

You will never be alone.

Amen.