Читать книгу The Yuletide Factor - Tim Huff - Страница 12

“I just knew that little lads and lasses aren’t meant to be hooked up to beeping machines with rubber tubes on Christmas Eve.” Or ever. Ever. And yet there they are. Every day. There is just so much that makes no sense in this world. There is so much pain, and the suffering of children is among the toughest to comprehend and endure. Oh, to have answers and solutions for such suffering.

In the absence of answers that satisfy, we are offered a promise of nearness: “The LORD is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). The gift of His nearness is the offer of a companion for the hardest journeys. Of course, a companion doesn’t make a valley any less of a valley. What a companion does, though, is offer comfort and care along the way. The kind of comfort we receive in His nearness replenishes us in ways we often can’t measure. It fills out our frames so we can stand; it keeps us on our feet, helps us take the next step, and then the next and then the next.

His nearness can be experienced in many ways, including in the love and presence of others. In some seasons, on some days, He brings us a Shandi. Other seasons, other days, He invites us to be a Shandi.

Can you think of a time when you felt God’s nearness to you when you were suffering? When you were broken or broken-hearted? What did it look like? Feel like?

Have you had an experience with a Shandi in your life? Or one in which you were called to be a Shandi?