Saturday, February 03, 2007

A Pilgrim's Burden

In the past couple of days I have been burdened for some people I love dearly. I do not know exactly why but I was moved to pray for them every day especially for God to protect them.

Today I got to know of the reason why I was prompted to intercede for a very dear sister. She shared today that she may want to give up her faith in God. When I heard that, I cried because I really do not wish her to let go of God's hand because of some struggles or doubts she is going through now. I do not know exactly what they are but I just pleaded with God to embrace and hold her tight.

I took a cab back. Along the way I gave two of the mission team members a lift to their respective homes after our debrief. The taxi driver was a lady and her name was Janet. I hope I got her name right.

She is a fellow sister-in-Christ. She is in her fifties. I got to know that she is a Christian when she told me that she would be going home after dropping me off. The reason she cited was that she has to go to church early in the morning.

We started to get to know each other. This sister-in-Christ has gone through a lot but she still hung on to her faith in God.

She lost her Caucasian husband when she was 26 years old. She did not remarry as she had to take care of her son, Edward Kent, who had cancer and is now in remission. When he was still healthy, he backslided in his walk but has now come back to God.

She drives the taxi just so that she can make ends meet. This sister also volunteers at The Helping Hand. Currently she allows an ex-inmate who has left the halfway house to use her taxi so that he can earn some money for himself. She does not require him to pay part of the taxi's rental fee or diesel cost. But she shared with me that he is using the money he earns to gamble and drink. In fact when we were talking, the ex-inmate called to ask her to fetch him home as he was drunk.

She sighed when she got the call. She told me it is tiring to have to care for people like this ex-inmate but she said something that touched me - she said if God did not give up on her when she was struggling with the setbacks of losing her husband and also her son's illness, why should she give up on this person that she is reaching out to? She said this is one way she is using God's blessings in her life to minister to others.

It was heartwarming to listen to the testimony of my fellow sibling-in-Christ.

But my heart is still burden for my the other sibling-in-Christ who is struggling in her faith. I guess I will have to use my faith in God to pray for my dear sister's faith so that He can restore her walk and assure her that she is serving the one true and living God. I am going to intercede for her every day till God restores her and I want to believe He will and is in the process of doing so.

I shall end here. I need to sleep (I pray I can though) because I am serving God as a drummer at the 11:15am service.

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." Psalm 51:10-12

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