I was at the missions clinic waiting for the missionary doctor to give me the necessary vaccinations for the crisis relief trip to Sichuan.
At the waiting area, bags, boxes and crates filled with medical supplies were strewn all over the place. A close friend, J, was with me.
“Need any help?” we asked a tubby middle-aged man carrying a large box, clearly overwhelmed by the mess before him.
“Yah, sure! You can help pack these- thirty units of medication to a bag. Bags into boxes! Here. For the crisis in Myanmar.”
And so we packed. There were all sorts of pills, containers and sachets to be packed into different boxes. Paracetemol, DHP, Combiderm cream, oral rehydration salts, and other names which I hadn’t seen before. As we packed the supplies into the last box and heaved a sigh of relief, J said, ” Sigh, I just hope all this medication gets to the people in Myanmar. It’s just so sad they’re dying when… when… “
“… when all this help is available to them,” I said, gesturing at the stacks of boxes which filled the waiting lounge, “But they’re rejecting it outright.”
“Yeah… All this help ready for them… right here. What a tragedy.”
It made me think about what Miss A said about my issues with fears of abandonment, a mountain which had accumulated from a tiny molehill during the course of childhood, through certain events.
” God is always there for us, ” she would say, ” God’s embrace is always there for you- but you have to picture it in your mind, believe in it and receive it for yourself.”
It made me think of how, so often, we unconsciously reject the love of God for our every circumstance, even though all His love and all His help is available for us, in every situation and circumstance. Just as how the different-coloured pills, sachets, and containers of medication were all available, for every illness that would be sprouting up in Myanmar in its acute phase of recovery, God’s love and help for us is available for us in every possible situation, no matter how specific it may be. He’s got an answer to our fever or fears, diarrhoea or depression, infection or iniquities.
Yet, like Myanmar, we so often, almost without fathomable reason, reject the very thing which could save our lives, give us hope. We reject what is good for us, what we need, when all that help and all that love is… … Available to us. Right there. What a tragedy.
God will never abandon us, nor forsake us. For all our weaknesses, shortcomings and inadequacies, He will not stop loving us. His love for us comes in every colour, every size and every shape, ready to be Fedexed to us right to our doorstep. Yet, why do so many of us find it easier to reject all that help and all that love when He has them all ready to fill us with, all ready to make us whole, happy, healthy again.
God will never abandon us, nor forsake us. His love and help is always Available.
But it’s up to us to come to our senses, to believe that help sometimes really doesn’t come with a personal agenda, to receive love big enough to heal all our wounds.
It’s all there, Available, waiting for us, specially packed into boxes sitting in a waiting lounge up in heaven-All ready to be delivered to us.
Because He promised- that he would never leave us nor forsake us.
It’s all there, right there, waiting for us.