When the Rev. Kevin McBride opens his office door on a snowy Sunday morning, he’s ready to preach a good word for tough times. He walks straight into an anxious crowd of cookie-eating people who could really use some deeper sustenance.
There’s Jeff Bean, who was laid off 11 days ago from his manufacturing job and now sells identity-theft prevention tools on commission. There’s Ken Archibald, an unemployed contractor. And there’s Kim Sparks, a chicken farmer in a purple sweat suit and white T-shirt that proclaims: “My Savior Is Tougher Than Nails.”
She’s losing money on every egg sale because of the high cost of feed. “I worry a lot,” says Carolyn Matthews, a freelance editor whose retirement portfolio has been “pretty much decimated” in recent months. “But Scripture is full of adversity. And in every story, there’s a triumph of this sustaining Spirit.”
Any kind of reversal of our physical fortune or well-being can also present an opportunity for a directed re-connection with the God Who made and sustains us. As difficult as our adjustments may be for us, it can be a positive thing if we are able to accept the fact that all the “stuff” we collect around us during our lifetime is just that — stuff, that crumbles into the dust from which it is made. God is good, all the time. And often we are able to recognize that best when adversity rears its head.