JESUS Cares for Care Net

By Nanette Maldonado
     Community Liaison

Jesus cares for Care Net.  We care at Care Net and we don’t stop caring at Care Net. When I think about a burning fire, I think about us at Care Net.  I think about the staff and the volunteers that serve and the fire we all need inside of us to do what we need to do.  Why is this necessary?

It’s necessary because…

 

There are HARD days and we can’t quit because of them, we need to overcome them.

Prayer covers us on those hard days.  It fuels the fire in our hearts to overcome them.  If you didn’t know this, you know now, we gather every morning to pray together.  In fact, we pray frequently, and we don’t stop when we lock the door at the end of our day.  We keep praying.  The faces we see and the hearts we hear from are not forgotten.  We move from heart to heart, and we hurt when our clients hurt, and we rejoice when we see our clients rejoice when God moves in such a unique way, in unique situations.  Crisis turned into triumphs.  Trust me, there are days when our joy is zapped, when our hope is losing its grip on our ANCHOR and that’s when we run to sit with the ONE who gives REST and PEACE.

We won’t quit, because He won’t relent.  Quitting is not in the DNA of Care Net and who we are.  I mention again, prayer fuels our fire.  Prayer is the very thing that keeps us seated in passion during the victories, through the defeats, with the lost, and in gain.  We do have both, you know.

   

You see, those are the times when the response of our prayers unfold and we have to trust God with the results we see.  Especially the times we did all we could.  Times when we hoped the situation would change but didn’t, or the end result wasn’t exactly what we wanted it to be.  But GOD. 

There are times when we feel we missed the mark, or didn’t say what we needed to say, or what we said was not enough...once again, what do we do…we pray.  We care at Care Net.  You see, we don’t work alone.  We work with someone else…JESUS.  He is the BOSS.

He invites us.  In everything we do, we invite Him.  From the music we play in our waiting area, to the receptionist we have answering calls, to the counselors we have speak with our clients….it is all orchestrated by God.

God brings the clients to our doors.  He is there when a mother who thinks her daughter may be pregnant Googles and finds Care Net.  He knows.  What about the young couple that waits for the results of a pregnancy test, and finds out they are pregnant, when they themselves are barely on a first name basis.  He knows.  What do we do?  We PRAY, we LOVE, we LISTEN and we share information that calls for wisdom.  God knows and He leads.  He is faithful, even if the mother takes her daughter to get an abortion after meeting with us, and when the young couple decides to give their child up for adoption.  He knows.

   

I end with this in mind, we can’t do what we each do here at Care Net without HIM.  We see a lot and we hear a lot.  We get bogged down and we have days when we are on cloud nine!  We do it all for HIM and we serve the unlikely, the unlovable, and the unreachable.  Prayer sustains us and that is what fuels us to continue the good fight.

  “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.  (Please continue to read passage, John 15:5-8)

Stay connected to HIM: Prayer, Trust, Faith and Love fuels our fire, what about yours?