Dear Theophilus Archive: Dec. 2000

Ministering Love: An Update from the Bronx

As some of you who were guests at our wedding may remember, Pastor Paul preached a message entitled, "Ministering Love" at our wedding one and a half years ago, in which he encouraged, even challenged us to love one another, our church, and our community in tangible ways. Knowing in our hearts that Christ loves us and died for our sins, we were inspired to grow in this way.

Prior to moving to the Bronx for Henry's emergency medicine residency (a.k.a., indentured servitude), we fully expected obstacles in our first year. We faced a new city, two new jobs, a new church, and a new marriage. We wondered if we actually would minister love as God has called us to do. Indeed, God challenged us many times since then through different aspects of our lives.

As Henry worked in a busy emergency room, he treated an endless line of people: gun shot, stabbing, rape, and car accident victims; drunks and drug addicts; debilitated and neglected nursing home elderly, just to name a few. From encountering such human tragedy on a daily basis, Henry battled against the onslaught of emotional numbness, bitterness, and judgment. I also experienced my share of societal distress, ranging from wild encounters on subways to helicopters hovering over our apartment and shining spotlights into the windows. "I feel like I'm in an episode of NYPD Blue", I told Henry.

Through these experiences, God challenged us daily to pray for peace and healing in our community and against the negative thoughts, emotions, and behavior that could so easily bubble up within us. God answered by providing us opportunities to share Christ's love with other, for example, by comforting a grieving neighbor whose father had died, by showing compassion towards a patient, or by joining other tenants to celebrate our "sanitation engineer's" retirement. We thank God for giving us these and other opportunities to minister His love to our community.

Although we often return from work exhausted, at odd hours, seemingly just ships passing in the night, God's grace enabled us to minister love to each other in small and great ways. Julie: Henry, for instance encouraged me to pray through my decision to change my career as a nurse practitioner to a clinical editor for a national nursing journal. He frequently drove into the city to pick me up from work, did the chores and my errands on his days off, and initiated devotional times. Henry: Julie ministered to me by many times patiently waiting for me to come home late at night just so she could share the dinner she had prepared. She also encouraged and prayed with me when I struggled with work and fatigue, and she efficiently planned the small details of our daily lives. Truly, God has been faithful in cultivating our love and creating a sense of oneness.

The third, and possibly the most intriguing way, in which God has challenged us to minister love, is through our church. Our search for a new church proved more difficult than we expected. At Emmanuel, Henry and I enjoyed a solid Christian foundation from the Sunday sermons - we admit it, we like P. Paul's points and subpoints - and through the fellowship of believers there. We felt that foundation shaken a bit as we encountered many different churches, each with their own positive and negative points. We attended six churches (some longer than others) and three different home fellowship groups in search of the right fit. Through this spiritual journey, God helped us develop a clearer vision of who we are as Christians and of our roles in the church community. God challenged our judging of other churches and humbled us so that we could love more. We now attend the original church we visited, as well as regularly attend a home fellowship group consisting of a diverse group of people. God encouraged us to minister love to others by initiating ministry outreach opportunities, leading praise times with our guitar (at least, our attempts to play guitar), and coordinating prayer requests. Again, we thank God for drawing us nearer to Him and to others.

Finally, we thank our families, new friends, and those old friends who ministered love to us as we started a new life together. Your phone calls, emails, known and unknown prayers, and acts of kind ness have truly encouraged us. We thank God for opening our hearts a little more and strengthening our faith. We know that God will continue to make us all more into His likeness. We just need to let Him.