Good morning…
A few weeks back, when I was sitting in the Macon Coliseum watching our son and his teammates wrestle in the State Duels team tournament, I received an unusual text. “Hi Sue. I was given your number through someone else. My name is _____ and I could use a lot of help.”
“Hi ____,” I texted back. “I am happy to help. Let me know what I might do to be of support.”
“I feel as if I have struggled deeply with choices I have made and where I find myself now,” she replied. “I am always physically/mentally wrestling with anxiety and I need guidance.”
“Where do you live?” I wondered back.
“Alabama,” came her response. “Support is something I know I’m in desperate need of because I know I have been battling with despair. What I know I needed, I just recently parted with.”
“I am a trained spiritual director,” I explained by text, “and I offer phone sessions to people out of state. Might you be interested in scheduling a time to talk?”
“Sure!” she quickly texted back.
“What does Tuesday or Wednesday look like for you?” I wondered. “I am at my son’s wrestling tournament all weekend.”
“‘My heart needs a surgeon, my soul needs a friend,’ she replied back with lyrics from a Christian song. ‘I should be available Tuesday.'”
We set up a time to talk. She called. I listened. Through our sacred time over the phone, God reduced us down to one simple word: “Come.”
Jesus says to each of us, in the brightness of day and the darkness of night: “If you are thirsty, come to Me. If you feel despair, come to Me. If your heart needs deep healing and your soul needs a friend, come to Me.”
Before our final prayer, what was my parting gift to this thirsty woman I may never meet? “Listen for Jesus’ whisper, ‘Come to Me.’ Notice the small ways you are drawn to respond to the God who knows you completely and loves you just as you are.”
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love…” (Isaiah 55:1-3, NIV).
…Sue…
P.S. Listen to our Savior’s voice singing through this touching song. Daily our hearts need a surgeon. All of our thirsty souls need a friend. For intimate dependency, we are wired by the Father of faithful love.
