EMOTIONAL OXYGEN Through A Visit From Friends

If you’ve ever been a caregiver, you may have experienced a taste of the draining emotional environment in which I resided for almost three years.    When you have steady responsibilities for someone’s care, you seldom have time for any social outing.

My personality is such that I love having people around me, their presence is a welcome treat.   God knows that we need people to love us in practical ways.    A favorite phrase from Scripture that encapsulates where my heartbeat is this, that God works in us to “will and to do” His will and pleasure.     When He works His work in His people, and they express His nature and care to another, recipients experience JOY!    Pure joy!

For weeks at a time, I would be alone at home with my precious Mother.   She would enjoy reading, and watching television programs and chatting with her friends on the phone.   I loved hearing her laughter throughout our home.    

This day was an ordinary day…….until our doorbell rang.    Two people from our church stopped by to say hello.   If you can visualize the strength of a vacuum hose sucking in debris, you have the accurate picture of my response to these two special people.  

I really didn’t know this couple very well.   We had often exchanged hellos and hugs at church, but that was the extent of our contact.   They had heard about my isolation at home and decided they would come for a little visit.  

We’ve probably all employed the phrase describing how we enjoy the presence of another person as a “breath of fresh air.”   To this day, I don’t think this couple had any idea what their presence meant to me on their first visit.  

It was as though God was breathing “divine oxygen” into my heart and soul.    This loving couple just wanted me to know they were thinking of me, and praying for my mother and me.    Their visits were a practical way on how to love-on another.  

They not only prayed for me in my care-giving role, they became like “God, with skin on” in my presence.   Sometimes in life, there just aren’t adequate words to describe the heart-felt compassion and emotional tenderness that is experienced when the presence of a friend shows up and lightens the atmosphere in where we live. 

This thoughtful couple in subsequent visits would stay for about an hour and a half and we would share a cup of tea together.   Their visit would stabilize and energize my heart with a tremendous amount of joy.   It was as though through this couple “God came near…..to visit me.”

This experience brings alive the reality that yes, our lives can express the presence of Jesus to others.    Let’s practice this often, in everyday living……realizing that if we have given our lives over to Jesus Christ’s lordship of our lives, we carry God’s presence in us, through the living Holy Spirit touching others with His love.  

I hadn’t seen this couple for a few years, but just the other day I saw this couple again.    I found myself trying to share with them, again, how meaningful their many visits in our home meant to me…………..but there just aren’t words to describe when the “love of God comes near.”

“PEOPLE MAY FORGET WHAT WE TEACH, BUT THEY’LL NEVER FORGET HOW WE MADE THEM FEEL.” William Buechner

Oh that we would ask God regularly to show us who He would have us visit, either personally, or perhaps just across the telephone wires or via a little note….so that they can experience the “touch of the Lord in the arena of their life.”

“The heroes of the faith had one thing in common:  They were all ordinary people with no power of their own.  The difference is the mighty presence of God.   Times may change, but the effect of God’s presence remains the same.” Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby