Good morning…
After crafting yesterday’s post, We Live In Layers, I returned to my email and received this message from a dear friend: “Please consider helping my neighbor as she tries to rebuild her life from a devastating house fire on Wednesday night. https://www.gofundme.com/f/house-fire-recovery-for-dale-pierce-taylor?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.” As I read through her difficult story and scrolled through the list of “Go Fund Me” donors, I saw many names of people I know and love. One small part in her rebuilding process that I feel drawn to play is sharing this link for you to prayerfully consider yourself.
There are so many devastating tragedies set ablaze in our world today. How do we each discern the part God is asking us personally to play? We cannot do and be everything for everyone, all the time, each day. There is just not enough hours in the day or energy in our bodies. So how do we know which of the many needs deserve our committed “yes” and which ones deserve our compassionate “no”? If we actually sense a “yes” from God, how are we to understand the role we are to play? Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground (Psalm 143:10, NIV). On level ground with God, we make wise decisions about our time, our resources, our top priorities.
A blog post forwarded to me earlier in the week by another dear friend also helps me to answer these life-giving questions. This blog post, written by my friend’s close friend, offers astute wisdom as we invest in the process of discerning God’s Holy Spirit’s guidance.
“When you are ready ask your internal wise guide, what is the area or issue in the world that needs my attention? What is my contribution alone to make? What is one small step I can take today to address this issue? The answer may come as a hunch, an image, a whisper or grab your attention with a single word. No matter how it comes, your heart and soul will answer. Trust that, follow that, and focus mainly on that issue. There are billions of other people who are tied to all the other issues that need addressing. Grab the single hose that has your name on it and point it at the fire along with mine, your neighbors’, your child’s’, and your friends’ and together know that we can and will make a difference.” – Nicola Tannion Ph.D, https://www.nicolatannion.com
In the face of overwhelming need, the blog posts this week for our online community help us to pray, “Empowered uniquely by You, LORD, what difference am I to make in the world today?” In the silence of this Sabbath, please touch on the link below, drawing close to our past posts, reviewing at your leisure God’s intimate invitation into healing action.
A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it (1 Corinthians 12:14-18, MSG).
…Sue…
P.S. Later in the day, two emails came in, emails I feel compelled to share with you.
- “Sue,” one reader wrote. “You have blessed so many with your blog – but this one made me cry ugly tears. Yours is such an open and loving heart. I am grateful to be your friend and your follower. So thank you for sharing the message about Dale. She is our special neighbor – the woman we all know in our neighborhood. She is like our mascot. She is intelligent and extroverted and off-beat and quirky. One neighbor said ‘she is the heart and soul of Rockingham Drive’. Your sharing this message will no doubt bear beautiful fruit. Thank you for being you.”
- “Hi Sue,” another one of you wrote. “I was blown away this afternoon when I read your post and saw it included the link to the Go Fund Me for our neighbor Dale Taylor. The night of the fire was so scary, sad, and devastating. The next day like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, family, friends and neighbors started to mobilize in astounding ways to help her. God’s presence and grace is palpable. It is absolutely amazing how generous folks have been! She is certainly feeling connected and loved by the community and is in fact relishing it. Our community as a whole has benefited from rallying around to assist her. I feel blessed to be witnessing this. With thanks.”
- “Ha!” she wrote. “I was just reading the blog post when your personal email came in! I love how you wove Nicky’s wisdom into yours. Into God’s! Xxx.”
