January 17, 2023

Memoirist Mary Karr gives us a helpful reminder when she says, “A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” That’s a bible insight. Because we are all dysfunctional. In other words, none of us functions the way we are meant to function. There is always a wrench in the works, a hitch in the giddy-up, a snake in the grass. Sin always is at work.

Time once again for Paul’s great insight.  “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15) To truly understand our own dysfunction is to have compassion on another’s dysfunction. And it makes the day go, if not easy, at least easier.

“Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Third Sunday in Lent – BCP)