Thursday, September 24, 2020
John Rice
Support
Agonizing about the horrors of pending execution, Jesus craved support. None was to be found. The disciples slept while soldiers moved in. Steady-as-a-rock Peter retreated. The nightmare would be faced alone.
Two-thousand years later, how many fund-raising letters arrive pleading, “but we can’t do this without your support?”
As parents, we give our children everything. Sometimes all that support pays off. Other times inexplicable things happen. Junior doesn’t always get into Harvard, play centerfield for the Red Sox or be elected president of the United States.
Yet we love them unconditionally anyway.
Occasionally, God seems to send us “Angels” of support. As a young man and Army officer candidate, I once crumbled under harassment and dissolved into tears. One of the training officers, a burly New Hampshire State Trooper in civilian life, ordered me to come with him.
Out of sight from the class, he told me to shape up. He said I was too good for that behavior. He insisted I would be a great officer someday. I “fell back in,” graduated and won the Commandant’s Award along the way.
And so, I suggest that support is love without strings. Sometimes it does take an “Angel” out of the blue. And clearly, there are no guarantees when you give support. Even non-profits fail. But oh, how Jesus would’ve treasured anyone willing to step up and comfort Him on that terrible night in Gethsemane.
For me, almost half a century has gone by since early Army days. New and difficult passages of advancing age relentlessly confront. In June, wife Joan was diagnosed with 0varian cancer. Overnight, I became a caregiver and prime source of support. Ringing more true than ever is the wedding vow we took back in 1974, “to have and to hold…for better for worse…in sickness and in health.”
Numerous cards, letters, flowers, stuffed animals, e-mails and a two-month meal train are obvious indices that we are, fortunately, not alone in this struggle. Many others selflessly lend support. Even a few surprising “Angels.”