I Find Myself Grieved

My friend, Army Chaplain (Major) Patricia Nichols serves the 75th Field Artillery Brigade in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Recently, she posted a heartfelt video on her Facebook feed. Her comments captured what was for me a beautiful Christian spirituality combined with a perfect example of godly emotional intelligence at work.

I could not help but pass along her remarks to you as both an encouragement in the face of the strident divisions marking our country today and an exemplar of the healing approach of a listening, compassionate heart, ready to understand before being understood. You can read the lightly edited transcript below.

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I find myself really grieved. I don't know why I scroll through Facebook sometimes because there are such strident tones on all sides. It seems so binary. It seems we've lost all subtlety; that we can only see things from our point of view.

And really, my point of view is so narrow.

I'm in Lawton, Oklahoma on Fort Sill, where we've had very, very few cases of the coronavirus. And the impact on me personally has been that I don’t know exactly when I'm going to move, so the uncertainty of my summer move. That's basically it.

There have been some inconveniences, with things being shut down. And there was one little time there when we couldn't find toilet paper, but hey, Sergeant Frickey works in the commissary and was able to get us a pack.

The fact is, I talked to someone Saturday whose sister is a nurse in a hospital in Boston, and they've had to create another ward for coronavirus patients. There are some places where people have really been hit hard with this virus and their perspective on this is vastly different based on where they live. Then there are others who've been impacted financially, extremely so. All of their life savings were dedicated to a dream and now it's gone.

That impact is huge for them, but it's very different from mine. It's very different from the family who lost someone and they couldn't have a funeral.

So I want us to have compassion. I want us to love one another. Let this mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he was God, didn't think it beneath him to become a man and to live life as we live and to experience the pain of being human.

I want us to be like Christ.

I want to be like Christ. I don't want to be selfish. I don't want to be thinking about only me and the way things impact me, but I want to pray. I want to pray for all those who are hurting before corona, with huge burdens of grief and pain. I want to pray for God's comfort for them.

I want you to pray with me. I want you to pray for those who are suffering addiction, who need deliverance, who needed deliverance from this virus. I just want us to pray. I want us to put aside our foolishness and cry out to God, and reach out to others in love.

Do you hear my heart tonight?

I don't mean to preach at you, but there you have it. I love you and I'm praying for you. If you've asked me to pray for you, I have lifted you up to the Lord and I will continue to do so. And I ask that you do the same for me.

Amen.

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Dr. JeannieMay 22, 20201 Comment