How Can a Puny Human Help in the Face of Vast Struggle?

In between biking and kayaking, I spent an hour speaking with a woman in crisis who chose life over abortion. Though I have only known her a week, at the end of our discussion where she poured out a litany of really dreadful circumstances, she had the sweetness to ask if I was having a nice time on my vacation.

The world is so full of beauty and danger. Somehow they coexist but disaster is just a mouthful of sharp teeth away.

While kayaking after the phone call, another woman called me. She had my name from literature we hand out on the sidewalks of the abortion center. She chose life and wanted to see her baby now that our new RV with the mobile ultrasound is back on the curb in front of the center. A life saved because Cities4Life had been present on the sidewalk! That felt glorious!

Then my sister and I were blessed by the sighting of a dolphin near our kayaks. I think it was God's way of reminding me that the troubles of the world may be as vast as the ocean, but out of those depths appear treasures of His goodness, surfacing and twinkling in the sparse rays that manage to sneak around the clouds of despair.

In this world you will have troubles, but take heart I have overcome the world.

Wendy knew the phone call with the woman in crisis had distressed me.
"You need to get out on your kayak," she said.
"You can tell?" I asked.
She nodded heartily.
That obvious, huh?
"It's just that I'm so helpless here? What can I do to help her?"

I can do nothing. God can do everything. You could help though. This woman needs a car for her growing family. She chose life and Jesus in unbearable circumstances. If you have a used, reliable van that you can donate or consider selling for $2k or less, please contact me immediately at vkaseorg@cities4life.com

Meanwhile, I'll be in my kayak looking for glimpses of God's glory and provision.
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John 16:33

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

2 Timothy 3:1-17

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. ...

Philippians 4:6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Matthew 6:25-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...