I woke up a few days ago to a friend sharing some awful news on social media: his wife had died suddenly overnight. It didn’t catch me totally off-guard. I’d known his wife was a cancer survivor, recently mysteriously sick again, and she’d had taken a turn for the worse the day before.
Still, it was a shock to wake up to. And setting aside the practice of logging onto social media before even getting out of bed (yeah, generally a terrible idea) receiving such news tends to put everything else into perspective.
This friend, now a pastor in southwest Florida—an area Sister Jennie and I once explored serving—then found his family right smack in the path of a major hurricane, one currently still leaving a trail of destruction even as I write this.
But first, some friends of his flew into town. Friends I recognized, again from social media. The kind who give you a hard time about everything except whatever you’re struggling with in the moment. The kind whose main mission is to make you laugh until you risk wetting yourself. The kind who won’t let you face tough times alone, but who also won’t try to fix the unfixable.
There’s a pretty fair portrait of ministry in there, what’s often called the “ministry of presence.” It’s why I want to know when something is going wrong for you, so I can be there—or at least try!
We often marvel at how much gets dumped on certain people all at once and at how well they handle it. Faith helps, yes. Courage in the face of adversity, sure. But never underestimate the power of a listening ear. It might be you doing the listening—or it might be you who needs it, without realizing it, until you’re right in the middle of it.
Pastor Jon
