The Duties of a Brother [or Sister]#3

...Uphold the weak... (1 Thess 5:14, NKJV)

...Uphold the weak; Faithfully care for or support the weak minded, the doubting, the hesitating, or the person vacillating in opinion or faith.

This was me, after Islam and before Christianity, and my mother was the person who did the upholding. She was the person who, through prayers over the phone during our 15 minute phone calls, faithfully cared for me. I had reached a point in my life where I couldn't figure out if God really existed or not and was at the point where I had tried to convince myself that he didn't. Without her even knowing what was going on, my mom was preventing that with her constant prayers and recitations of scripture, with her constant and apparent care, concern, love, and desire to see me better, my mom supported me until the Lord took hold of me.

And now I find myself in the position where I have do it for others. Christian men who feel as though they've done enough to get paroled only to find out that the parole board has said they have to stay for another year, or two or three. Men with life sentences who watch other Christian men go home and wonder why God hasn't blessed them with freedom. Men who have lost loved ones while incarcerated; they have lost mothers, fathers, and children and they wonder if all the pain they are enduring is because God doesn't really love them.

And I know there are people out there who can not only relate to what I'm saying but also with what I am doing, because they are doing the very same thing, though the situations they deal with may be different. I know there is someone, at this very minute, caring for someone who is battling drug addiction or alcoholism and doubting God's love for them because they figure that if God loved them he would surely take the craving away. I know someone is faithfully caring for someone who is a victim of sexual or physical abuse whose faith weakened because they can't understand how a protective God can let that happen to them. And I know there is someone who is right now questioning and challenging God as to why their child wasn't important enough to him to be spared.

And to those who are doing this faithful caring, I salute you and I pray for you daily that God continues to grant you the strength to continue fulfilling your duty to your brothers and sisters in Christ. I thank God for your presence in the lives of the people you are serving and ministering to, and I implore you to never stop. And when you've reached the finish line with one person, be prepared to help the next, and the next, and the next, and the next one after that because they need it. I'm telling you something I know because I needed it and I thank my mom for always being there.

Prayer for the day: Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for giving us brothers and sister who can build us up when we are weak and we ask for the strength and courage to reach out to others when they are weak. Continue to surround us with your love, peace and joy. In the name of Christ, Amen.