Do you ever have those days that you are so stooped over with your load that you would like for someone to grab your pack back and carry it for even a few minutes? You have prayed. You have spent time alone with the Lord, but your load is heavy and you just want a “human ear” to hear; to lift it for even a few minutes, while you stop and drink a cool bottle of water from God’s pristine well.

Yes, I do believe that each one of us have those times and as I’ve shared previously, if we live alone without friends or family to reach out to and say “hey, I need some additional prayer today, then where do we go?” I have often reached out to those in my church whom lead the prayer ministry, or I know are a sincere prayer warrior. Today was one of those days. I was literally awake all night, tossing and turning, but also praying.

I opted to reach out to our church prayer ministry leader. As I opened her reply e-mail I had to read it several times for I wondered if she had even read my short, but sincere prayer need. She had a list longer that our annual tax returns with her mandates. What? Her harsh and condescending words had nothing to do with what I had queried. She was commanding things which I have done countless times.  She was abrasive and abusive rather than supportive and loving.

Chuck Swindoll shares in one of his devotions that going to those in church is the right thing to do. He said “where can that fella…go to unload…to get help to bear the burden….a place where there is person-to-person caring and the opportunity for authentic sharing. Where he will feel free…to state his struggle; where some will listen, help him unload and give him fresh strength?”  I thought that was what I was doing with the director of the prayer ministry. The burns I received were so severe, I won’t be doing that again. I am and will continue to be that “someone” for others and will continue to pray and seek that God will bring me that person to help bear my burden when they are too heavy to carry alone. Gal. 6:2-3 NKJ, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.