Lenten Photo Devotion: Day 14
LIFT
Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:11
As I have journeyed through the day I have been looking everywhere for an opportunity to photograph our word for the day: LIFT. I have thought of elevators, car jacks, cheerleaders, as I went about my day of visitations and a clergy covenant peer group meeting.This afternoon as I drove home I began to reflect upon all that had happened today and it suddenly dawned on me that I had been lifted or had been used by God to lift others all day.
It started in my covenant group as they listened to me share a burden that was on my heart, then they gathered around me and laid their hands on me and prayed for me and for the situation. The feel of the weight, the heat, and the compassion from their hands was overwhelming and made me cry. Perhaps they thought I cried because of the burden but the truth was, I cried from the joy of having hands lift me from a state of worry to a state of remembering - remembering that as long as I am a Christian I am never alone in the journey. I have brothers and sisters who journey with me and they are, at times, the hands of Jesus lifting me up and encouraging me to take the next step.
When I left that meeting I went to an area nursing home and spent some time. There, I held the hands of others...weathered, wrinkled, weakened hands...and I tried to lift them up in prayer and in spirit. They all were smiling when I left them...I pray they felt lifted on this rainy, drab day. I pray my hands were the hands of Jesus lifting them and encouraging them as they take their next steps.
The words of 1 Thessalonians 5:11 came to mind and I drove home in the cold rain and I smiled as I thought about the hands that have touched mine today. I started out the day feeling low and burdened...I end the day lifted and free.
Be the hands of Christ for one another
encourage
build up
LIFT
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