One of my dearest friends is hurting today. And I want to fix it. But I can't. This is a situation I've been in before, and I've never learned to like it or to be at peace with it. I think most of you can relate. We always want to take away the pain of those we love and cherish. I think it is part of how we are made as relational creatures. We're meant to be in relationship with each other. But we are broken creatures living in a broken creation, so things get broken. And while it is our first instinct to "fix it," we are broken too. We can't even fix ourselves, how are we going to fix anyone else?
This has been bothering me all day. How else can I deal with my friend's heartache if I can't just wipe it away? I suddenly thought of one of my favorite Gospel passages, Mark 1:40-42. In it, a man with leprosy comes to Jesus, and asks the Lord, if Jesus is willing, to heal him. I love Jesus' response: "I am willing."
Now, I know this isn't a passage on heartache, loss or emotional suffering. It is Jesus meeting the physical need of a person. But those 3 words carry so much more weight than simple healing (if healing leprosy was simple!). Jesus didn't just do it because he should, or could, or had to. Jesus was willing.
This offers us 2 separate hopes today. First, Jesus is willing. We can know him, we can be clean, we can be reconciled to the Father because Jesus is willing to make that happen in our lives. Secondly, we have a model. We can't do what Jesus does, but we can be willing. We can be willing to carry His good news, His joy, His truth, His comfort. We can be willing to love people in the mess of a broken life. We may not be able to fix anyone the way Jesus can, but we can be willing to love. Our willingness to love shows a broken and hurting world that the Savior is willing.
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