This frequent mood of deep melancholy feels right.

"I wonder if it is how you feel, God, over mankind and the wrong and suffering in this world," I pray as I think and feel.

There is a burden I feel. A heaviness to my emotions. If it was a color, it would be a dark and deep color, perhaps a maroon or purple. There is a longing for better. There is memory and wanting to return to happier and simpler days that were more fun, with less responsibility and full of naïve optimism for the long, bright future.

Within the burden are also strong feelings of hope, love and affection,

first for my family, then for friends, neighbors and beyond. I have concern for their struggles and desire for their well-being. I fear the spiritual, emotional, physical and mental dangers that threaten their lives.

In addition to these feelings, I have energy to think and feel and act. To care.

Feeling care, I want to do something to make life right and safe and good,

for my loved ones and God’s sake. This makes me feel vital, full, and whole, even though I am older, more physically challenged, weary of the hurried pace of life and away from career advancement and reward. Often alone in my study, my soft chair or sitting on my porch or back yard, these feelings influence my thoughts. I don’t want to just roll over and let the world go to Hell. "You care God, and you help me care."

In my own strength, my care causes me to feel overwhelmed and deepen the melancholy.

Thoughts and ideas flash across my mind light lightening. Bright and powerful but gone in a second. And, sometimes like a severe summer or spring storm, there is a light show of steady flashes. There are so many needs and so much potential. Barriers need to be removed; questions need to be answered. Some people need to be rescued, others need to be comforted, or encouraged or challenged or corrected.

So, I listen and wonder, and I pray.

“God, is this how you feel? What mood are you in today? What were the feelings contained in your love, that brooded over the void before creation or that sent your one and only son to all who believe so they could have everlasting life?

Are you telling me that you also have heavy feelings of burden and affection mixed together in a maroon-colored love? Are there elements of the past, the present and the future active at the same time?

Are you using my melancholy feelings to unite me with you and invite me into your work?

‘Let’s work on this plan of redemption together. Let’s show people how much I care about them. I know their struggles. I feel their pain. I love them and want to meet them, comfort them, forgive them, hold them, redeem, reward, make them well and whole and wise and new and strong and eternal. Then my work will be complete, and we will celebrate. Until then we will groan with a mixture of burden, alarm, desire, anger, longing, remembrance, warmth, pleasure, and vulnerability, because we care.'

Today, I know you are a God with emotions. Even though your feelings are a million times more intense than mine...

I think the feelings I am having are healthy, correct, and Godly. I think this is the feeling we feel when we care and I am inspired and filled with hope. Amen."

Caring ministries, like many other roles in God's work, are carried out with a deep burden and much pain.

If you are experiencing those feelings , I hope this post helps you understand what is going on in your soul, so that you will endure the pain and succeed in your life and ministry of care.