I know a man -- Paul...
Illustration
"I know a man" -- Paul means himself. He won't boast, but he could if he wanted to. He has had so much "going for him" in his ministry. He has had such a rich experience in his faith. But he also has a "thorn in the flesh"; something that in his life diminishes the claims he might otherwise make on his own behalf. In the midst of abundant gifts and implied power and success, there is pain, loss, weakness. In the experience of weakness, he finds that God is with him, and that God will use him, weakness notwithstanding.
In a novel called Nels Oskar, the lives of Swedish immigrants in Michigan in the midst of the 1918 flu epidemic are described. Nels Oskan over a period of several days loses his family to the epidemic, and is himself stricken with the disease. A neighbor comes to check on him, and finds him and his dead sister's infant ill and near death. She takes care of his farm animals and nurses him away from death, but he is not yet recovered, and there are the bodies of his family still in the pantry, waiting to be buried. The sudden cold of an ice storm kept back decay, but also kept the undertaker away, even if anyone had been able to go to town to tell him. Finally, Nels Oskan is well enough to get up and have his family taken away. On the day of the burial, he rises and finds his neighbor dressed in black velvet, sitting in a rocking chair near the window, singing to herself: Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide; when other helpers fall, and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.
God is with us in the midst of loss and trauma, and can even use us in the midst of frailty and weakness.
-- Johnson-Hoy
In a novel called Nels Oskar, the lives of Swedish immigrants in Michigan in the midst of the 1918 flu epidemic are described. Nels Oskan over a period of several days loses his family to the epidemic, and is himself stricken with the disease. A neighbor comes to check on him, and finds him and his dead sister's infant ill and near death. She takes care of his farm animals and nurses him away from death, but he is not yet recovered, and there are the bodies of his family still in the pantry, waiting to be buried. The sudden cold of an ice storm kept back decay, but also kept the undertaker away, even if anyone had been able to go to town to tell him. Finally, Nels Oskan is well enough to get up and have his family taken away. On the day of the burial, he rises and finds his neighbor dressed in black velvet, sitting in a rocking chair near the window, singing to herself: Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide; when other helpers fall, and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.
God is with us in the midst of loss and trauma, and can even use us in the midst of frailty and weakness.
-- Johnson-Hoy
