Carrying the Torch

Don't you just love it when God meets you where you are and tells you just what you need to hear?

I have been battling some discouragement lately.  I feel like we are running around in circles and getting nowhere.  After arriving in Arkansas, I pitched myself whole-heartedly into the projects that Nathan had been helping with, trying to put my talents to good use and help out where I could.  Since I am not working during the day, it was convenient for me to run the errands, make the contacts, and even put in the elbow grease to help things along while everyone else was at work.  After brief successes just before Christmas, things have taken an unexpected turn.  Suddenly, the individuals helping us in these enterprises have all but fallen away, leaving Nathan and I to try to carry the weight ourselves.  As a result, our schedule is never our own, our evenings are almost always booked (for one or both of us) and we rarely get to spend any amount of time together that doesn't involve doing something else.  With our time here drawing to a close, we recognize the need for someone else to step forward and take over, but so far there have been no takers.  Sometimes I feel like a lone soldier atop the mound at Iwo Jima, waving the flag and trying to rally the troops...only nobody else is paying any attention.  Sure, occasionally someone will contribute an idea, a "should" or "could", but it rarely goes any further than that.  It usually ends up falling back on Nathan, which in turn means that I end up being responsible to see that it gets done.  I know that makes it sound like I am feeling sorry for myself, and maybe I am, but it is so exasperating to work and work and work and see nothing result from it.  So many times I have wanted to just throw in the towel and accept failure, thinking life would be soooo much easier if we didn't have these responsibilities to worry about.  Sometimes I even wished that our call to move would come sooner, so that we could have an excuse to leave and let someone else worry about how to carry on.

This morning I read again from the Gospel of John, chapter 9.  The passage was the story of Jesus healing the man born blind.  The message of the story seemed to be loud in clear, but there was one part of the passage that I puzzled over.  Later, as I was getting frustrated thinking about all the things I needed to do this afternoon, the story flashed back into my memory.  Throughout the book of John, Jesus is constantly trying to open the eyes of the people so that they will believe in him.  He uses miracles, teachings, testimonies about himself, and even a direct declaration that he is God's son.   "If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me?" he says (John 8:46).  He relentlessly proclaimed his message, only to be continually rejected by the very people he was trying to help.  Talk about work, work, work with minimal results!  Then, after healing the man in Chapter 9, he says "As long as it is day we must do the work of him who sent me.  Night is coming, when no one can work.  While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (John 9:4-5).  As I thought of that verse, I felt God speaking to me about my frustrations and our situation.  True, we will be leaving here within the next few months.  True, there is a lot of work to do between now and then.  However, "as long as it is day we must do the work of Him" who sent us here.  It was as if God was reminding me that His work for me here is not finished.  Just as Jesus poured out all of himself for me, I am called to pour out all of myself to serve where God has placed me.  As frustrating and exhausting as it may be, while Nathan and I are here in this community, we are called to be a light to this community.  There is no doubt that the kids and adults we interact with here have just as great a need for the light of God's love and saving grace as we do.  It's just so hard to "brighten the corner where we are" when it seems like somebody's is always trying to blow our light out.

Somewhere there's a quote that says something about wanting to wear out serving God before "rusting out" and being unable to serve.  Okay Lord, I'll keep carrying the torch here, until you tell me it's time to pass it on.