Hope

PREPARING COMPASSION PT. 1

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

This year our church is focusing on seven prepare statements we are calling our 2024 congregational sentence.

“Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! Prepare you Spirit (come out of the decay of your strongholds). Prepare your Souls(Prepare to practice and feel compassion). Prepare your facility (your structures, infrastructures and plans). Prepare for the storm (Pray for action plan, Pray for a spirit of perseverance). Prepare your witness (know your gifts, earn the right to speak, build your relationships with those outside the church, build your example). Prepare your hope and faith (think hope, speak hope, act in hope). Prepare your love (love each other, love the people in your towns, love those who disagree with you, love through the doors that open).“

PREPARE YOUR SOULS TO PRACTICE AND FEEL COMPASSION.

Jesus was known as a man of compassion. Compassion is the movement of concern, love, pity. It is an emotion that results in action. Kind actions devoid of the emotions of concern, love and pity are not compassion. Further feeling concerned or loving or pitying without doing something as a result of those emotions is also not compassion.

Jesus did the things He did because He loved people and He pitied their condition. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9: 36

We must be like him!

WHAT ARE YOU PRAYING MORE FOR, COMPASSIONATE FEELINGS OR COMPASSIONATE ACTIONS TO FOLLOW THROUGH?

THE HOSPICE PROCESS AND GOD WINKS

/ joseph elon lillie / 6 Comments

This week’s big “project” at The Vicarage has been setting up hospice for my mother. At last week’s Telehealth appointment with Mom’s primary care doctor she felt we needed an evaluation to see if hospice was in order.

So this week we have had: Two telephone consults, two visits with a nurse, a visit with a social worker and a visit with a home health aid.

It seems to be a God wink thing that is going on. What’s God wink you ask?

God wink (plural God winks) An event or personal experience, often identified as coincidence, so astonishing that it is seen as a sign of divine intervention, especially when perceived as the answer to a prayer.

Here are the God winks we have seen this week:The doctor in charge of the program is actually the doctor mom worked with about twenty years ago when she was nursing at a local clinic; The social worker that came to our house I know personally through other hospice situations I have been involved in; And the home health aid I have known for years as her whole family has been a part of our church throughout the years.

It seems like God is working already to comfort us in all our grief! I love these God winks.