“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding.”

― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

Dear God, a friend gave me this quote to read yesterday and it brought tears to my eyes. I saw this moving about 30 years ago, but I’ve never read the book. I think I need to read the book.

I feel eluded and it both frustrates and hurts. But how much do I reject the love and help you long to give me sometimes? How often do I misinterpret what you did out of love as something you did against me? You are a good God. You are a good Father. You long to give me good gifts.

I’m watching a mother I know right now who has a special-needs child. She is aching for her child. She is doing whatever she can for him. Spending any amount of money and resources for him. That child will never understand a tenth of what she has done for him or is doing for him. There’s no way he can. What will happen one day if that child rejects the help the mother is offering? How much will that hurt her.

I am reminded of the story I mentioned a few weeks ago that Andy Stanley told about his young child who scratched the hood of his car “practicing her letters.” There was no way for her to know what that mistake cost Andy and his wife, and she had no way of repaying that mistake. She needed complete grace.

I’ve had wrongs done to me and I’ve done wrongs to others. Some debts accrued from some of the mistakes I’ve made cannot be repaid. I have no capacity to repay them. It’s impossible. And the wrongs done to me cannot be repaid. There is no way to deal with the wrongs in a just way. They simply need forgiveness.

So now I’m left with a need for grace extended to me. I’m left with love to offer, but, in some cases, it is not wanted. So, Holy Spirit, I’m asking you right now for some of the things I’m experiencing: What, if anything, is needed? I’ll do whatever you ask no matter what it costs me. I really will. And I ask that, if I am too close to the situation to offer assistance–if “the part [I] have to give is not wanted”–please raise up others who can meet that need. Use this pain. Don’t let it be wasted. Use it in a lot of lives. Be glorified, O Lord. Whatever it costs me, I don’t care. Be glorified, O Lord.

I humbly pray this in your Holy Name,

Amen