DAILY DEVOTIONAL 7
Darlene DiDomineck
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. - Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV(UE)
“With hope comes resilience and with resilience comes new beginnings.” - Indigo Girls
Healing requires hope. Hope cultivates resilience.
I spend my days with my unhoused/unsheltered neighbors. I am appointed to serve a daytime drop-in center called Grace Cafe. Grace Cafe is a ministry of Arch Street UMC’s nonprofit called the Center-Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the poorest of the ten largest cities in the US. The needs in this city are great. I bear witness to the traumatizing impact of the intersecting systems of oppression that bring my neighbors to the doorstep of the church every single day. That kind of trauma can sometimes make hope a difficult thing to embody.
About a year ago one of our drop in center guests arrived with wounds covering most of her body. Wounds I can only describe as apocalyptic in nature. The wounds were caused by an animal tranquilizer called xylazine which is commonly added to street opioids. She knew she needed to go to the emergency room. She feared however she would be judged or discriminated against by the emergency room staff if she didn’t get a shower and a clean pair of clothes first. She was in excruciating pain. Every movement was nearly unbearable.
She had only visited the drop in center a few times before that day. But she knew that if she could just get to the church she would find the support and resources she needed. She knew if she could just get to that big grey stone church on the corner that she would be received with love, dignity and compassion. And she was.
She returned to the drop in center a few months later after a lengthy stay in the hospital and rehab. Her wounds were healing and she had a new sense of hope and resilience. For her it was an opportunity for a new beginning.
May each of us find hope, resilience and a new beginning just when we need it the most. May God compel us to be bearers of hope in the midst of pain, cultivators of a resilience that brings about a new beginning wherever we find ourselves. A new beginning that can only be found when in community.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
1. How different would our world be if every church felt like a place of hope and healing for its neighbors on the most painful day of their lives?
2. In what ways do you need to change to become a bearer of hope and cultivator of resilience?
3. How can you be an agent of healing for those in your life today?
PRAYER:
God of Hope, your love is a healing balm on our most painful days. Compel us to be the same for this broken and hurting world in need of your love today. Amen.