The fortune cookie reads: I cannot help you, for I am just a cookie.

Sometimes, as your minister, I feel just like a cookie.  It is just heart-breaking to witness the enormous grief and suffering that we human beings are asked to endure.  So many of you are struggling, and I want to help you through.  I want to help heal the hurt or at least provide better conditions for healing.  But what can a cookie do?

There are broken hearts, wounded bodies and deflated spirits everywhere.  And the truth is no one really knows how to heal any of these exactly.  Medical professionals can understand the physical processes of life and death.  They can remove and rebuild and stitch us up again.  But the actual healing from such trauma is up to the individual.  The mind and heart are understood by therapists and ministers and others who study them, but their healing requires the full participation of the individual as well.

So it would appear that all alone we are faced with the task of healing what is broken.  But we know we are never alone really.  There is also time and love that generously help us when they can.  Sometimes, faith is just believing we are not alone.  And then healing will indeed happen.

So when I cannot help, I wish for healing. I wish for love. I wish for time to live with it all.

Yours for the journey,

Rev. Cookie