December 14 - 2 Thessalonians 1-3: Reality's Shadowlands

I just left a 5-hour class on caring for the mental health of missionaries.  My heart and head are full and overflowing.  The names and faces of the multiple cross-cultural families that we've come alongside are running through my mind.  They are the hands and feet of God, the salt of the earth, the ones who have risked so much.  I'm holding back tears as I re-enter my life of items needed at the grocery store, homework to help with, a sporadically-working internet and a Christmas to-do list that seems to be growing instead of shrinking.

Disturbingly, my heart and head aren't just full of the difficulties of these missionaries, but I'm also struggling with my own feelings of inadequacy - just being the wife of a psychologist (not actually a counselor myself) and as someone who hasn't lived overseas since high school.  I have the vision and the desire but not the credentials.  It's a hard place for me and I ache that I'm concerned about this at all instead of singularly focusing on what Christ is doing and the people who are in difficult places in the world sharing His gospel.  In light of this tension in my soul, I hear God saying through Paul,

Our God gives you everything you need, makes you everything you're to be... All this trouble is a clear sign that God has decided to make you fit for the kingdonm.  You're suffering now, but justice is on the way.... So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high.  Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter.  May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech. (1:2, 5, 15-17)

"But it is true that you live today in reality's shadowlands, where the experience of misery is often painfully real.  Without hope in My Son, the best you can offer to hurting people is distraction, anesthesia, meaningless pleasures, and more effective strategies for getting their own way.

"In this letter, I reveal a powerful hope that frees you from self-centeredness, from demanding anything now, a hope that strengthens you to endure everything I allow and empowers you to walk the narrow road of love, no matter how you are treated."  (66LL)