On a daily basis the people around us need prayer, yet we deny them the privilege.
The people who need prayer the most are some of those who get it the least. Those who don’t understand that they need help, everyone needs help at one point in time. Many of these people need prayers and acceptance but many never receive it. As a Christian this boggles me. I see devoted Christians who have been in the church for over 50 years but refuse to pray for just one person that needs their help. They will pray for people all over the world but not the one person in their community who needs it the most.
Just before school started I witnessed something that confuses me. This particular weekend my mother was having a ladies Bible Study at our house. Many of the ladies from the church came, although many of these women are friends there is one women who longs to be accepted by the other ladies but never will be. She is a bitter gossip who only cares to spread things around. This makes it hard for any of the other ladies in the church to talk to her about anything. Before the study started many of the ladies like to talk and have a snack. This one lady believes that you can’t eat before and is very grumpy when the other ladies do this. She scolds them for eating before and unhappily waits for them to finish before they can start the Bible study. By the end of the study she has usually made quite a few of the other ladies angry because of this they wait for her to leave before talking about going out to lunch. They spitefully talk about how they dislike her behind her back. Just like she gossips about everyone in town they gossip about her. It’s a never ending circle of mean comments. In a song published in 1959 by Jester Hairston and Betty Hall Jones it talks about what gossip does. “Gossip, gossip, evil t’ing much unhappiness it bring, if you can’t say somet’ing nice don’t talk at all is my advice.”
There aren’t many people today that I know that don’t gossip. I too am guilty of this but sometimes what we don’t realize is that it is very hurtful. This lady that gossips about everyone and has isolated herself and doesn’t know how to undo it. What she doesn’t realize is that she can’t because she will have to give up her favorite hobby to do so. The ladies in the church try as hard as they can to not be around her and they never pray for her. They leave her out of everything if they can because they don’t want her to “ruin it.” I have tried to reach out to her but she is so bitter that she doesn’t allow anyone to talk about anything other than what she wants to talk about. She condemns anyone who speaks over her and she doesn’t necessarily appreciate people’s kindness. It seems as if any good thing you send her way she turns it into something terrible.
She is one of the many people that I have seen that need prayer. She needs the support of people around her but everyone that tries is shot down so they just give up. Even though they give up they still gossip about her and she hears about it, I guarantee. The Word is always there for us in times of trouble or pain but few look to it anytime they need guidance. I too am guilty of this. What speaks to me every time something like this unfolds is Romans 2:1 it reads, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” We as Christians need to build each other up no matter how hard the process is. We need to always try and not leave others out, for God is coming. We too will see what he has planned for us and those around us.
Tomorrow morning my parents are going out to breakfast with this lady and her husband. They are doing this, not because they cherish the idea but because she herself is asking for healing. She is indeed unique. She can not see the good before she sees the not so good. Even so my parents will still try to be her friend. I believe that if we love her with Christ’s patience she has no power to criticize others because, even as she does this a Follower of the Christ will find how to love her infinity and back. By doing this the miracle longed for WILL happen. Her criticism will become, day by day, less and less while your thanksgiving, as the one criticized by her feeble nature, will prove how much stronger Gods love is as the healing agent to life and living. Your strength would be on asking those criticized to become the healed of she who criticizes everyone.
~Anyone can find the dirt in someone. Be the one that finds the gold. Proverbs 11:27
