It’s what we do

With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those with weak knees. — Isaiah 35:3

“You can’t detect it until it’s already there,” the hospice nurse says when speaking of pancreatic cancer.

Something else is not detected until it’s already there. That something is what hospice nurses not only experience but also share. Tired hands are strengthened and weak knees (and souls) are encouraged.

Our hospice nurse is wonderful Pattie. Pattie empowers those who are dying (and those around those who are dying) with Isaiah’s truth about hands, knees, hearts, and hurts too wide and too deep to ever be collected and controlled again. What’s this truth? It’s the news of Jesus, of who He is and what He does.

Advent is the perfect time to think of, lean into and learn from Jesus, the very One who comes to us in this season where we can be tired and discouraged.

But this doesn’t last. This doesn’t stay. As Jesus came into the world, Jesus comes into us. He fills us with what will be, and what will be is hope, joy, peace and love.

Hope, joy, peace and love can certainly be in the now. Isaiah, however, has a better focus, a brighter focus. Hope, joy, peace and love will be in this future forever.

Pattie knows this. Pattie lives this. Pattie shows this with every touch, every thought, and every movement that leads us from what is to what will be.

It’s what she does.

It’s what we who know Jesus and live Jesus do too.

Yes, there is (and will be) tired times and discouraging weakness. But this doesn’t last. Why? Because what we do with Jesus and through Jesus is what Pattie does, which is strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those with weak knees.

PRAYER: We receive this news of You, our newborn King, so that tired hands and weak knees don’t stay this way for long. Amen.