Tending

When you have been living on your own for a while, getting married is like running into a brick wall... Everything changes - and it can be uncomfortable. Although because it is marriage it might be more like running into a mattress. Either way getting through it takes some work. The way I go about living my life changes. I don't do stuff when I want to, and I do stuff that I don't want to (dishes, trash, etc...)

In the long run however, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. I know that there will always be someone there for me, someone in my corner who is cheering me on... My biggest fan. Tonight I get to take care of my biggest fan. She is sick on the couch right now, fell asleep about half an hour ago. I am trying to think of it as my honor and privilege to tend to her.

In my tending to her I could not help but think that we all from time to time develop spiritual sickness of one kind or another. The symptoms that we develop depend on what it is that we are sick with (sin of one kind or another). Jesus, the great physician, helps us understand what it is we are sick with if we are willing to listen. But the real issue is, who tends to us when we are sick? What people; who is it in our life that will help us in the times when we are sick? Yes. Jesus is there, but Jesus many times cares for us through others.

Sometimes we are so sick we cannot help ourselves and we need others around us to carry us; to confront us (lovingly ;-) of course) and get us through our times of spiritual sickness. Then again sometimes it is enough just to know that someone is there. Sometimes just having someone in the same room with us is enough. Tending to someone who is sick may take many forms but the point is that someone is doing the tending.

So tonight I tend to the woman sick on the couch, and one of these days she will tend to me...