Nothing

Ever felt like you had nothing to offer? Strangely it happened to me at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown. It struck me when I was at the hospital in my role as a Chaplain. One of the thigs being talked about right at the beginning of this challenging time was how staff at the hospital would cope with all that would happen. Mental health is rightly a priority at the moment, and there was concern for staff working daily with COVID patients and how it might affect their mental well-being. Psychiatrists only recently were talking about the numbers of hospital staff who might need psychiatric help or counselling as a result of their work. The hospital where I’m a Chaplain anticipated this, and the Head of Chaplaincy spoke to the team about the decision by the hospital to appoint six counsellors to be available for the staff. It made sense. a lot of sense. So, because I am a qualified counsellor, and because I work as a counsellor at St. Catherine’s Hospice where the work is all about loss, I thought: “I can do that! I can be a counsellor at the hospital.” And then I thought how God had brought these things together for such a time as this! So I offered. I offered myself to help the hospital as a counsellor, Honestly, it was a no brainer right? I’m here. I’m qualified. I can help. I am not however a counsellor at the hospital. What seemed obvious to me did not seem obvious to anyone else, No, it seemed I had nothing to offer. So because I am a mature minister I found myself getting cross with God. “What are you doing? What was the point of that training oif not for a time such as this? Am I not good enough? What are you thinking?” I had so much to offer and yet nothing to offer. Honestly, I was disappointed. Didn’t make sense. When Jesus stood on the beach after his resurrection and called to the disciples: “Have you caught any fish?” the answer was no. They had nothing. When they got to the beach after casting their net again at his command, they had loads of fish (153 according to John). But, when Jesus invited them to join him for breakfast after their long night’s fishing trip, he was cooking breakfast with fish he already had. They brought nothing! Until Jesus invited them to bring some of the fish they’d caught. I love it! They’d caught nothing by themselves and Jesus didn’t need their fish to make breakfast because he was already cooking them fish. But then he invites them to bring what they had, which they only had because he just gave them a massive haul of fish. Seems to me that’s how God works. We might feel we have nothing to offer. But Jesus invites us to be with him anyway. And he is quite able to turn our nothing into something he can use. I’m not counselling at the hospital, but I am using my counselling training more than I ever thought I would precisely because of the situation we find ourselves in. Maybe meeting Jesus on a beach with nothing can be a good thing.