Take all of these because I can’t.
All of these because I never could.

All of these because You can.

All of these because You are.

That’s what I wrote while I was talking with God the other day. I had made a list of of broken things in the lives of people around me. I was hurting because they are hurting. I want to do something. I want to help somehow. I want to have the right word. I want to be the wise counselor. I want to do something.

And I looked at the list and couldn’t do anything for the most hurting places.

• No matter what I do, the man in the casket isn’t coming back to life.
• The relationship is broken, perhaps beyond repair.
• The leg is 1500 miles away and I’m the wrong kind of doctor anyway.
• And the list keeps going.

I looked at the list of people and said, “God, you do something with all of these.”

And then I started writing the statements above, a list of my understandings of what might go through my heart while shoving the list of shared pain and uncertainty across the table.

I started with “Here, you take it, I can’t do anything with these problems.” As if the wisest man in the universe were handing off the undoable challenges to an assistant.

And then I realized that I never could do enough to fix any of those things.

But then I realized that these statements are less about God, and more about me. And so I turned to His potential, giving the affirmation of the wishful: I know you can do something.

But then I stopped. I understood that God is, somehow, is working.

There could be one more statement.

Anything I can help You with?

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