Let the Lord Heal You | Features

I’ve always loved the river, the way it cuts through the coal-streaked hills where I grew up and winds its way to where my family lives today.

Bubbling brown water, golden sand, barges and boats, the dark water glistened in the sun.

Yellow and red leaves framed the view, mottled and stained with trash. The lack of rain this fall has left the parched ripples of the riverbank exposed.

Water bottles, soft drink bottles, pill boxes, straws and shopping bags…

There wasn’t a lot of paper. There was almost no glass, perhaps it was lying quietly broken at the bottom of the river. Almost cartoonish was the rubber boot my son found and a half-buried tire on the shore.

They say it takes 20 years for a single-use plastic bag to decompose. Plastic bottles take about 450 years. Some days, I wonder what I’m leaving behind other than a plastic and imitation legacy.

Proclaiming, “I love the environment/this community/my home,” but rarely considering my actions and how I show gratitude for our gift, God’s creation.

On my best days, I see these little boys, a piece of my true heritage and what I will leave behind. I savor their every breath, their gnarled legs, and their toothy smiles, and I know they’ll be fine. God never abandons His people. He equips us for what he asks of us.

God created Adam and placed him under the dominion of all creatures and of all the earth, and He said to him, “Hold him out.

To care for something is to protect or guard it, to cherish it, to cultivate it, to keep it, to maintain it and to manage it.

By the grace of God, we were given this great and beautiful land, and we were told to cherish it. I think it’s hard for us to really experience that in our daily lives, because, well, we don’t treasure anything.

We’ve been referred to as the “throwaway culture,” where the average American accumulates 4.6 pounds of trash a day (1,600 pounds a year!), but that’s just consumable goods and wasted food.

Consider how quick we are to waste time preferring our phones over time spent with loved ones, real conversations, and authentic relationships.

How many marriages break down? Or the unborn child? Is everything and everyone disposable? What do we cherish?

Consider instead what are we clinging to?

Think of all those things that give us a false sense of security: that sweater that’s been hanging in the back of our closet since high school, toilet paper supplies, and money.

Would we share this with a neighbor who really needs it? Or do we cling to it because it’s familiar, a sense of plastic/imitation control in this chaotic world? Why do we cling to our grudges, hurts, and addictions unless we have learned to love and cherish their familiar imperfections and the pollution of our hearts?

What if we let them down and really trusted the Lord?

Be healed and transformed, you and all of his creation.

Let the Lord heal you. Let him show you how loved and cherished you are. Allow Christ to take away all worries, doubts and fears, so that you are free to cling to Him.

For the Lord, remember that a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day (2 Peter 3:8). He is not bound by time, or paralyzed by our problems, but He wants our hearts. Our obedience. Our confidence.