Read this account from the 2nd – 4th century, and perhaps you will be as surprised as I was when what just happened in Spain when the ebola-infected nurse’s dog was killed, is seemingly a reliving of responses to a plague in the 4th Century!
Though voices are muted and tones are hushed,
Echoes bounce loud on these white-washed walls
Doom, gloom, messengers of fear
The answer is easy. It has nothing to do with illness, bugs, heat, or lack of meat, lettuce, and strawberries. It is not the daily interaction with heart-breaking poverty, devastating as that is. No, we are empowered by the One who sends us, so though our hearts feel mutilated at times, we know it comes with the territory of our calling.