A heart is broken. Depression is knocking.

Sunday 11-6-2016  La Lucila, Province of Buenos Aires    

Today we read Job 30, Psalm 120 and Galatians 3 – 4

S.  Job 30:16-17 And now my heart is broken. Depression haunts my days. My weary nights are filled with pain as though something were relentlessly gnawing at my bones. NLT

O.  Our friend, Job, has every reason to pour out his complaint to God.  He has lost his prosperity, his health and his family and even his friends accuse him of unfounded sins.  His nights seem endless and in the daytime depression pushes him into languish. 

A.  When my mother’s mother, Mary Frances Shanbeck, was widowed and aged, my father purchased a nice small home and literally moved it onto our property behind our house.  I remember how he built a small basement and prepared the foundation and plumbing and then the house was brought down the street and set in place.  I was in my early teens and visited my dear grandmother many times.  Now in her eighties she married again, but her new 88 year old husband soon developed dementia and passed away.  In her final days she, too, suffered illness.  I would sit and talk with her.  I remember her comment, “My nights seem so long!  I long for the light of day.” But her days were filled with pain, too, and I did not know what to say to comfort her. I could just be there with her.  Even in her last days she held firmly to her love for Jesus. 

P.  Dear Lord, my turn may be coming soon.  I do not look forward with anticipation to the pain that seems to usually accompany the process of saying good-bye to “this old house”, but I am comforted by the assurance of a “new house”… a new beginning where suffering and pain will no longer cultivate depression.  And there I will enjoy being close to my loved ones and to You, my Savior.  Life will be an eternal adventure with You, my Lord.  Amen.

Ralph