What a pain in the heart!  I bet you’ve never heard anyone say that before!  I’m surrounded by people that are experiencing what seems like non-stop pain in their hearts.  I have a few friends that have been experiencing quite a bit of pain in relationships lately.  There are a few more people that are facing cancer and enormous amounts of stress.  I’m a teacher and there’s always at least one kid who is experiencing an obvious amount of pain at any given time. 

This morning I met with a woman who is new to serving Jesus (I love new believers!).  Without telling her whole story, she’s going through more physically than my feeble mind can comprehend, so she couldn’t come to church.  And what do we do with people that can’t come to church?  The church goes to them.  So I had the opportunity to go visit with her.  This was a fantastic morning.  🙂

I arrived to an earthly amount of discouragement and weakness, and only due to the presence of the Holy Spirit, I dismissed our time together with a heavenly amount of encouragement and strength.  I have to admit my own worries about meeting with people that go through more life than I can handle.  Certainly there’s nothing that I can do for them and I often fear that I will fail them in our conversations.  I guess I feel like this guy, Agur in Proverbs 30

I am the most ignorant of men;

I do not have a man’s understanding.

I have not learned wisdom…

I know that walking through my life, God has given me His Holy Spirit to guide me.  And as in this verse, I continue to be ignorant of many things and there are many things that I do not understand.  But when I walk into situations like I did this morning, and like I have a number of times recently, I see the power of God working, despite my ignorance and lack of understanding.  After all, I am still a growing individual who doesn’t ‘get’ everything there is to know about God.  It’s such a strong reminder that "it is not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit."

Life continues to be an adventurous journey that I sometimes get butterflies about, but that also gives me a rush of divine weightlessness as I step into battle, day after day, and come out more encouraged than when I started.