A few months ago, I took over the maintenance of my church’s website. I designed a new format, rewrote some of the content, clicked publish, and voila! The new beautifulsaviorantioch.com was born. At first, I thought nothing of the prayer request page that I update every week; the average age of the church members is probably 60, so I assumed that most of the cancer patients, terminally ill, and recently deceased were all in the elderly segment of the church body. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.
On our prayer list are a 14-year-old girl with a brain tumor, 3 women with pregnancy complications, several women in their early 20s with mysterious illnesses, several people with drug or alcohol dependencies, a few babies born with health problems, and several people under the age of 40 with terminal diseases. Add to that the constantly increasing list of those laid off from work (now including several former co-workers from Claire’s), having financial difficulties, or searching for better jobs, and that list seems like it is a mile long. It truly is staggering to see the amount of suffering and difficulty facing your everyday average human being.
I can’t tell you how blessed I feel every time I add a name to the list and it isn’t a relative or friend of mine, and I can’t tell you how humbled I was today to add the family of a friend who lost her brother-in-law. Her unexpected phone call during lunch today shook me to the core. I was angrily composing a letter in my head to the corporate office of a local store for some problems I encountered while shopping recently when she called, and her tearful voice on the phone cut through my anger like a knife through butter. Who am I to get so angry over such inconsequential things as cans of veggies in the wrong spot on the shelf when there are families suffering far greater tragedies every day.
For the ability to have misplaced groceries as my biggest problem these days, I am truly thankful, and for everyone out there suffering the loss of a loved one, I am truly sorry. May God grant you strength and light in your time of need.
Tags: Antioch Illinois, Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, church, faith, God, prayer
