On one particular day in hot Honduras, we had spent the morning giving the church a new paint job. And then we were taking a rest because it was hot and almost time for lunch. We all were sitting around the door with the pastor, trying to catch a warm breeze.
Seemingly with the wind, a drunk man appeared in the doorway, then proceeded to walk in. We are a group of eight American women, so we tend to not make friends with the foreign drunk men that are in the pueblo (town).
But the pastor began talking with this man, which was a refreshing surprise to see. After the two had a brief conversation, the pastor told us that this man was a good man. A man of the church. That he had been coming to church for six months.
But as clear as we could see, the pastor said he struggled.
He struggled with alcoholism.
His brother had been killed and he has used alcohol to numb his pain.
He walked around this town in a continuous drunk state.
Pastor Ronny asked us to pray for him. And that we did, in the middle if his drunkeness, in the middle of this church, we all laid hands on him and all spoke a prayer at the same time up to God for this man. Our voices were quiet, but they filled the church.
We prayed for life-transformation. We prayed for renewal. We prayed for healing. We prayed for God to enter this man’s life in a new way. We knew that no one is too far for God’s reaching, loving hand. We knew that chains could be broken. We knew that this man could walk in freedom from the things that were enslaving him and the pain that haunts him.
And as we prayed for this man. I was moved. I was moved because God had done all those things for me. And that He continues to do them. I, a flawed human, still struggle. I still have things that entangle and enslave. I move my legs and I can still hear the spiritual chains that shackle me. It is, and forever will be a process. I don’t have it all together and I will never reach perfection. I will always be in a place where I need a Savior.
But the Jesus in the Bible, desires to come lay His merciful hands on me, and heal me, and free me once and for all. I know it is possible in Him. I’m clinging to the hope that He desires to free me from things forever, and that I won’t continue to struggle. That is God’s heart for me. He is always creating me into a new creation, bold and beautiful. He is doing a new thing in me. And I know that one day He will bring it to completion, and then, finally I will be made whole in His presence.
