I am so depressed, as I haven’t felt, in a long time. Okay, it’s been a week. 😊🤷🏼♂️ This depression will likely give way to both the sleep snd sun of this crisp, chilled October morning. Rest will help a lot as I couldn’t sleep for a good part of the night. Thank God for the History Channel. Much later a road trip and responding with Joetta, my Lady, to the needs of our mom will awaken my soul. But it is the noon day prayers which will provide the gentle boost that lifts my spirit into meaning, allowing the veneflaxine and bupropion meds to push the fog of depression away.
Two nights ago around 2:30 AM in the hospital I lay in a fetal position having finished anew the WSCN Sunday worship. I felt wrapped in love, my eyes moistened to the warm purity that is Lorenzo’s voice when singing and to the rhythms of scriptures read, a stimulating, quite funny dialogue sermon snd voices all familiar.
Last evening around 1:30 AM my heart felt alive, full as it had not in years as my moistened eyes revealed a repentant spirit and a fresh love for God that has been building for a while now, but not known in maybe five or more years.
What is this “meaning” that is re-awakening in me; held in prison by normal, healthy human needs adjusting to getting old and by arrogance and allowing too much room to live off accumulated gifting instead of near God’s heart? It is the call to His mission: Jesus purpose was to awaken everyone to the Kingdom of God breaking into human spaces—introducing into human sorrows the Shalom of God, the Renewal of all things, The Kingdom of Love filling the earth.
And then, having wept and cried out for saving power, for the simple ability to once again love God and having received in a measure I’ve not known known for a bit, I relaxed into sleep only to have my body start jerking. It does that when I get too tired as the events of the last weeks have left me. Hence the tiredness and depression of this morning.
All these emotions will come and go but it is The Word of God sung, prayed, lived that remain; that will allow me to complete the last 15% of our building project; masonry and doors for final lower trim paint and the water garden.
Ask me sometime to tell you how many miracles we’ve witnessed in the last 7 years getting to this point, doing the work of $1,000,000 on $700,000. The homeless with whom we’ve worshiped have been a sizable portion of it; that and time—allowing us to learn and do a number of significant upgrades under city and county grand-fathered requirements rather than as an upgrade of the whole. That would have taken $1.5 - 2 mil, easily. I was kindly informed by a consultant early on this was impossible. I listened, probed, learned and my limited experience in partial management of two electrical firms over a decade told me he was right. But then God…
So please pray for me that God’s gracious presence in the midst of medical issues that will take a bit to work through will renew my strength for the last 15% of the building project and even more importantly The Mission!
Well, time to get going. Pack the car, work on the sanctuary door and go to Wednesday Prayers before leaving. What are these payers? Ancient, words of the church and Israel whose repetition open, over time, a flood gate of love from Adam and Eve to St. Francis of AssisI.
Blessings!
Epilogue: Getting ready to sleep. I’m depressed again. Tech issues side tracked Wed Ancient Prayers. Instead of renewed in our journey to moms (3 hour) I’m in great pain. Probably too early to have tried. Still Joetta and I watched an episode of Quantum Leap. Lights out now and I’m crashing. But first will say the Jesus Prayer (as I’ve re-written it), then listen to 2nd Chapter of Acts—the music group—and fall into my Saviors heart till morning.
Jesus Prayer:
Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner.
Lord Jesus, Son of Mary, have mercy on me a sinner.
Wednesday Prayers-10/06/21
2nd Chapter of Acts: “Which Way the Wind Blows”
LIB1-5 or LIB3-20 Devotional Reflection on Salvation as Personal or Communal: https://youtu.be/TSnfm4dzW7U
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