a burden lifted

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat--

for he grants sleep to those he loves.

--Psalm 127:1-2

As many of you know, I've been preparing a sermon to preach in German this Sunday at Christuskirche, a small German church in Glendale; and as most of you suspect, mein Deutsch ist nict so gut. Over the last two weeks especially, this has been an all-consuming project and a huge weight on my mind.

Yesterday I spoke with Doris, the church secretary. As it turns out, most of the members speak English more fluently than German, but attend in order to regain and nurture their cultural heritage. On a typical Sunday, the pastor preaches in German while an English translation of the message appears on the overhead. The person who operates the visual equipment told Doris recently that he would be gone this Sunday, so she suggested to me that if I would simply preach in English I would have better luck communicating with the group as a whole and make her job a lot easier. I have gladly complied.

Whatever embarrassment or disappointment this change in direction might bring me is more than atoned for by a sense of utter relief. I really don't see this as a failure. My main goal was to stretch my German skills, and that have I certainly done. By now I have well surpassed any abilities I had a couple of months ago. To prepare and preach an entire sermon in German, however, is still a little further beyond the boundaries that I would be able to cross within the next several days. By now what I want most is to bring the community something instructive and encouraging from the Scriptures and to communicate it clearly, speaking from a place of grace and calm, and not from a place of anxiety. I will do that much better in English. I slept well last night.

Otherwise, I'm having a bit more difficulty than I often communicate. When people ask how I'm doing, I automatically give a response that focuses on the positive and avoid saying too much about the more troubling things that afflict my mind and body. This is not entirely evasive, since being with other people tends to build me up and take my mind off my own problems. The truth, however, is that I badly want to be prayed with and prayed for, to confess my struggles, fears and sins to another human being who will listen, bear them with me, and point me back to Christ. It's not that God hasn't given me an abundance of such friends. I simply tend to hold back from them.

My blood pressure still gets low enough that when I say I'm out of energy I don't simply mean that I feel like taking a nap in the afternoon; I mean that often I can't stand up long enough to do the dishes or vacuum the floor. Moreover, it appears that I may need to change to an entirely different set of drugs, whose known side effects could include an inability to eat or drink anything cold, a particularly formidable scenario in the middle of a Pasadena summer. I'll find out in early August. These things by no means constitute my whole reality. There are times when I feel energetic enough for a brisk morning walk, when I can relax my mind and heart, when any sense of fear or victimization are far away from me. But I do ask for people's prayers. I just don't ask often or candidly enough.

I should clarify. What I absolutely do not need right now are suggestions or words of advice. There is a time to evaluate and fix someone's problems and a time to walk at someone's side in patient and compassionate silence. A time to cure and a time to care. Nor, really, do I need expressions of grief over my situation. The tragedy is not that I am facing a terminal illness. The tragedy is that I exacerbate my situation by becoming so isolated in my work and fighting so hard against my limitations that my daily tasks turn into a ongoing war against my own self. This is my besetting sin, and I've learned from Scripture and experience that the way forward begins with confession to a brother or sister who will listen, pray, and mediate God's grace to me. What I hunger for right now--and what I am so strangely reluctant to ask for--is that kind of human fellowship. And this is what the body of Christ is for.