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Advent playlist

Joy in Caring

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. —JOHN 10:10 (NIV )

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2023

Some of my very favorite kinds of people have existentially and emotionally expensive professions. These healthcare workers and first responders, caregivers and therapists, teachers and social workers, chaplains, priests, and funeral directors have chosen jobs that take them to the heart of human need. They understand the precarity of life. They see it every day. Like my friend Gary Haugen who rescues kids from human slavery around the world. Gary and his colleagues at International Justice Mission bear witness to so much fragility and pain. But they, like so many others in caring professions, feel called.

As Thomas Merton says, “Our individual vocation is our opportunity to find that one place in which we can most perfectly receive the benefits of divine mercy, and know God’s love for us, and reply to His love with our whole being.” It is perhaps surprising that the place where we are most effective as givers is the exact place where we better understand God’s mercy and love for us. In this divine alchemy, we give and we get. But, hey, if you’re feeling a little rundown or burnt out, bless you. Perhaps borrow Gary’s trick for sustaining this kind of work. “Joy,” he says, “is the oxygen for doing hard things.” Where can you top up on joy today?

READ THIS BLESSING FROM THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE

for caregivers (p. 96)

Blessed are we who say, I really can’t keep going like this, at this pace, under this weight, and the momentum is so strong.

God, come and be the wisdom to find that the community is broad enough, kind enough, effective enough to meet the needs that are here —both mine and theirs.

REFLECT

1. Where in your life do you see how precarious, how fragile, and how precious life is?

2. Do you sense joy in any particular activity or role that brings meaning to your life, whether or not it is a paying job?

3. What is your level of fatigue in the work that you do? Where could there be an adjustment so that it is more life-giving for you and for others? Or do you need a hard reset?

GOING DEEPER

• There are days that we need to be reminded that God is with us. There are days we need encouragement to keep working and doing the work God has called us to do. There are days we need to hear God calling us by name. Listen to this song (on repeat if needed) until you soak in these gentle reminders: “Your Labor is Not in Vain” by The Porter’s Gate (4:20 min), also on our Advent Playlist.

• Some people have a resilience and determination that is breath-taking, and Gary Haugen is one of those people. International Justice Mission is dedicated to rescuing people trapped in slavery and violence. The scope of it is huge, and the reason he doesn’t get overwhelmed is that for Gary, “joy is the oxygen” (4 min) that keeps him going.

• In my conversation with Justin Welby, in the podcast episode, “Suspicious of Joy” (52 min), he spoke about the intensity of human suffering that crisis workers deal with and that he himself has experienced in comforting the tragically afflicted. He asks, how does one deal with the enormity of the need and how impossible it is to meet it? He says, “It actually doesn’t matter what percentage of the problem you’ve dealt with. Your job is not to solve the problem in most cases. Your job is to do what you can with the resources God has given you. And if that’s very, very little indeed, it’s very little indeed.” Listen for a very special and wide-ranging conversation that bubbles up with humor and wit.

From "Bless the Advent we Actually Have" by Kate Bowler and The Everything Happens Project