Come Quickly

A dear relative just posted on Facebook about someone she knew about whose daughter was admitted to the hospital with anorexia.  The girl is in her early teens and quite ill.  Someone responded with prayers and a closing thought, “So many hurting…”

And it’s true.  There are so many hurting people in the world.  I am amazed at the number of people I see and know who are hurting in some way; who have chronic illness; who have emotional pain in their lives.  People who screw up courage just to get up each day and face what is coming.  They live those days knowing that things aren’t going to get better anytime soon.  They will continue to have to deal with the pain, suffering, and trauma that life is dealing them right now and for the foreseeable future.

If you don’t know anyone who is in chronic pain or hurt, you don’t know many people, or else you’ve been living under a rock.  Who do you know who is divorcing?  Who do you know who has a chronic health condition?  Who do you know who has a child with a physical, mental, or emotional illness?  Who do you know who is caring for a loved one with chronic conditions?  Who do you know who doesn’t have use of all of his/her limbs, digits, or other sensory organs?  Who do you know who is in a wheelchair?  Who do you know who has lost a spouse to death?  A son?  A daughter?

Who do you know who is struggling with the demons of schizophrenia, PTSD, anorexia, alcohol and drug addiction, or one of any number of other conditions, either in themselves or in others that they love and care for?  Who do you know who has been trafficked, is a runaway, is struggling to find a job and keep above water, or daily deals with a sorry public transportation system because they can’t afford a car?  Who do you know who decides whether to buy food or medicine this month because they can’t do both?  Who do you know who wonders whether the electric will be shut off for non-payment before the gas is shut off because they don’t have the money to pay them?

Yes, in many ways this is a wonderful world.  God has provided blessings in abundance and we and others are enjoying the bounty.  But there is much in this world that is wrong…so much so that the creation itself, Paul says, groans, longing for release from the bondage of sin and death.

We thank God for the blessings.  We ask God to right the wrongs.  And we pray, even as John did at the end of Revelation, “Come quickly.”