Fellowship of the saints

"You go through it to help others." I never liked that saying. That doesn’t make sense to me, and it was one of those churchisms that actually drove me away for a period. I kept thinking, what kind of God is this? I’m supposed to be happy that all heck is breaking loose in my life so that I can help someone else? Well, not exactly. If we carry that sentence all the way out: …so that I can help someone else when it happens to them. That’s the point. As I said to a friend yesterday, I keep reminding myself that God is sovereign, and God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind (Numbers 23:19, NIV). My point? Man fell. Sin entered our world. He never meant for it to be like this. We did this. Man did this. Humanity did this. And it must hurt Him to see us hurting from something He tried to protect us from. Lord knows, as a parent, I surely get that. Worse irony there is, for real for real. Sin entered the world. Jesus hasn’t come back yet, so we’re still here, and so is sin. Bad things are going to happen to us (see man fell, sin entered the world). The fellowship of the saints is not an out for God, as if He said, "Ok, I’m not going to help you with this, I’m not going to prevent bad things from happening to you." He gave us the capacity for compassion because He knew bad things were going to happen to us (He’s omniscient, He knows the end from the beginning). The fellowship of the saints is His provision for us. That’s a looooong way from, "You go through it so that you can help someone else", now isn’t it?

This came to me today after speaking with another bereaved mother. When we finished talking (and this was after being ministered to by two friends earlier in the day, and after digging deep into my knowledge of God to send a word to a family member)< I cued up my iPod: music->genre->gospel. The list played this way: Declaration (this is it) by Kirk Franklin, I want it all back by Tye Tribett, The Appeal by Kirk Franklin. Phew! Then Grateful by Hezekia Walker--one of Sekai's songs, it is on his memorial DVD, but I have not let that song play since he left--and Held by Natalie Gran--a song that I played over and over when he was gone the first time, shared with him when he came back, but I have not let that song play since he left. Funny, because more than once I tried to take those songs off of my iPod. Today though, they cued up, and I let them play. Then three more songs cued up that were Sekai's songs, and I skipped through each one, and then turned it off because I could almost hear him singing those songs, and it was too much, hurt too much. But that's ok. Baby steps. And I really listened to the lyrics. And I really believed the lyrics. And I thought of the glory of God. Selah.