Mercy in a Manger
Being in full time ministry positions you to hear some very tragic stories. It requires keeping confidences, which can be a heavy load that must be laid at the feet of Jesus. The other night I told my husband my eyes were obviously getting old, because they were aching. Maybe they are aching because they've about popped out of my head at some of things I've heard recently. If my neck starts hurting I know it's from all the head shaking I've been doing in disbelief over the way people treat one another.
It's the middle of the night I awakened and couldn't get back to sleep. Tis the season for checking our list and having a lot on our minds. My mind ran to some of the heartache stories I've listened to in the past couple weeks. Then the Lord said this, "It could have been you." Whoa.
The mother weeping tears over her son who is a meth addict, another sitting in a hospital room rocking her child just diagnosed with cancer. The bedraggled homeless man, probably someone's father, sitting on the side of the road at a highway exit shaking his fists in the air having a discussion with no one. The woman having suffered sexual abuse looking at me with blankness in her eyes describing the fear of seeing that man again now that he is out of prison. The infertile woman who has had miscarriage after miscarriage who resolves "I will never have children." Another who has invested over a year fostering two precious little boys that she and her husband hoped to adopt, only to have the judge rule this week that he is placing them with their grandmother.
Two situations where a spouse has made false accusations (one the husband and one the wife) and had their mate arrested and taken their children away from them. While in each case it only lasted a night before they were released, the marriage has been destroyed and the children subjected to some very ugly altercations.
Any of those scenarios, all of them leaving deep wounds, could happen to anyone of us. As the song below says, "Behold a Savior. A savior who brought mercy to us in a manger." When we hear the stories, do not judge, but with compassion in our hearts remember, "That could have been me."
God's Word assures of his mercy.
Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
Isaiah 30:18
He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3:5
