You may have heard me mention before that serving in PNG, God has used every aspect of my personality and abilities to serve Him, in one for another. You may have heard me say that, part of what I love about serving over there, is that I can see how God designed me for this purpose, and how everything fits together so well.
For a few days I've been consulting on some reports and each report that goes out has a score on it. We track 6 elements of things. Today I noticed something while processing the reports BEFORE sending them out. If you read the first letter on the LEFT of each score, it spelled out "SADPOO". I decided to re-arrange the scores so that we didn't somehow subconsciously give everyone a 'sadpoo' report.
I chuckled at that, because reading things forwards, backwards, and sideways is always something I have done just to entertain my eyes while I listen to people talk. I often, without meaning to, see a word, then think of how to spell it up, down or backwards. For example, this blog, I would look on the left hand side and see "YPWE FWSDR" in the first 2 paragraphs. I'm not Monk, it just is part of my personality. And I frankly, I never thought it would come in handy before. This little oversight could have been one of those bad jokes you can't shake for a long time.
But as I got to think about it, I realize, that I too have a Sad Poo report to give.
My wife, and I and my kids are all really down this week. Sad. There's been a LOT of hard things that have come at us in the past 4 months. You already know of many of the losses. This week there are more.
Last week, we were told a beloved Cousin has a very short time to live. Our already hurting hearts sunk deeply.
Then we were told a friend back in PNG nearly died, though he survived he lost his leg. Our backs felt more burden for our co-laborers in Christ.
Then, this weekend, a very dear friend of ours died suddenly from a heart attack. A lump swelled in our throat, tears poured, and our hearts dropped into our socks.
Not everything is rosy right now. We are sad, and with grief and sorrow comes exhaustion. We know God is sovereign and good, and we know we've had more than our fair share of good in life. Right now we're looking down a long dark tunnel of pain and hoping there is light soon.
If you would join us in prayer, please pray for our spirits to be healed and lifted, for our energy to pick up. We truly had a hard 4 year term and we need this home-assignment to be restful, but it hasn't been. It's been hard. We need it to get better. Would you join us in asking God for that?
Would you join us in asking God to console and comfort those who are affected most directly by all of this bad news?
Thank you.
