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Hi y'all!
This was a weird week, wasn't it? Chances are you probably walked outside one day and there was this cold, frozen stuff stuck to your windshield. As a lifelong Texan, anytime it dips below 40 I begin to lose my mind. The same is apparently true for universities since not only did we have no class on Monday because of MLK Day but on Tuesday we were cancelled because of the ice. I can't even describe how messed up my internal clock is right now, my first day in the office this week was Wednesday!
And then my week was made even more abnormal by the 25 hours I spent in the hospital on Monday. I spent an entire day watching as doctors and nurses hooked my 12-year-old nephew up to all sorts of devices and machines. I sat there and watched as they tried their hardest to make him have a seizure so they could record the data and better understand the thing that sat malignantly in his brain.
He was scheduled to be there for 5 straight days so I figured I'd help make the time less awful by hanging out with him. That meant I did whatever he wanted to do so we played (and I'm not exaggerating) 6 straight hours of Fortnite, we made paper airplanes and talked about how we hate cottage cheese, we watched conspiracy theory documentaries on the Titanic and JFK. I didn't care what we did, my only goal was to make things a little bit easier for him and my sister.
Eventually though, I had to leave. I had to head back to Beaumont and return to my "normal life." And as I was driving back on I-10, still a little bit nervous about any icy patches on the road, there felt like there was a little hole in my heart, something wasn't right, something was missing. I realized that I felt guilty for leaving, I felt guilty for going back to normal.
How is it right that I get to go back and sleep in my own bed, how is it right that I get to go where I want to go, do what I want to do? How is it right that I don't have to worry about what some aberration in my head is going to do to me??
As I sat there in my apartment trying to get back on track, my heart cried out, "what more could I have done?!" My mom, my sisters, the nurses, even my nephew himself thanked me for doing this and spending the day with him and yet I don't know if my heart believes their words. My heart still cries out, "there must be something else, there has to be some words, some prayer, some gift so that I could do more!"
And yet as I sit here, 5 days later, this same feeling of powerlessness guiding my pen and my heart, I know that sometimes there isn't more, often there isn't a word, a prayer, there isn't something more that I can do. I know that sometimes the most I can do is simply be present, to love as best I can.
And so as this weird and abnormal week ends and a new, hopefully normal one begins...
I pray that my heart would listen.
I pray that my heart would listen to my mind that knows there's nothing more I could have done.
I pray that my heart would listen to my loved ones who've said I have already done a great deal.
I pray that my heart would listen to God who, in order to love us fully, "emptied God's self, taking the form of a slave, and by becoming like human beings (Philippians 2:7)". God became powerless and was able to love more fully.
May we all know the power of powerlessness, the power of simply being.
Amen.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Kyle
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