Reaching Out

If you look around, it's not hard to find someone who may need to be lifted up. When Jesus walked on earth that is exactly what He did. He healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, picked up the crippled and encouraged many with the words He spoke. Those words are still with us today. We can still be encouraged by His word and also encourage others. When someones else is going through a hard time and needs that lift, a shoulder or just a listening ear, I think we need to be ready to hear them out and help them through it. "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up."(just as we are doing?) It seems like people are often afraid to honestly share with others anymore what is really going on and how they really feel because it will be perceived by others as a pity party or afraid people might think they are just trying to get attention, when all they needed was a true friend who wouldn't make these judgements right away. I say this because my heart has been going out to a number of people out there who are going through things that we can not even imagine if we we haven't been there ourselves. God has allowed me to go through some grief as well over the years and in many ways I now consider it a priviledge. With God's help I got through it, and I  want to be there for others when they need help getting through things.  I still often feel helpless and don't really know what to do for people. I do know however that love and compassion are two very important things that Jesus has and we also need. All of our church meetings/services, event planning and money giving is nothing if not done in love. Sometimes we do need to step back and reconsider what it is we are making ourselves busy with and the motives behind it. This I say because there are many out there who need us and I for one don't want to forget that. Sometimes we just need to pray for them and other times we can go beyond that.