John 5

Sunday, March 17, 2013

John 5

There's a lot of dense stuff to work out in John 5, so I almost feel like I'm cheating concentrating on the story that happens in the first part of the chapter.  But when you're exhausted and ill is the time to let yourself slide on such things, right?

The first story in John 5 is about a pool that is apparently visited periodically by an angel who heals the first person to get into it.  Jesus comes along and heals a man who's been trying to be the first one in the pool for years but never manages it because he has no one to help him.

Ouch.  Just...hurts your heart, right?

I remember just kind of nodding along when my mom talked about how blessed a time it was when my dad was dying because of how the community gathered around us.  In time, I've come to appreciate that.  I've never eaten more or better than the year he was sick, thanks to the outpouring of food from the Church (they made a schedule after the 4 turkeys and 20 million pies on Thanksgiving "disaster").  The city of Beaumont mourned my father's passing.  So many people helped us in so many ways.

So many people carried us to the pool.

How do you even find the people who have no one?  Is it as simple as the ones begging under the overpass?  Is that what my mom is doing with CASA?

And if I'm really committed to being a foster mother so that there are that many more kids who had someone to bring them to the pool, then I need to set some real, concrete goals about when I will consider myself ready to do this (moving out of my mom's house an obvious one).  So that's my goal for Lent - to figure out what I need to accomplish to have my life together enough that I can make a commitment to helping the people who have no one reach the pool.

Suggestions for benchmarks welcome.