prayer request

There are a number of reasons I usually avoid this forum, but I really do need some help, so here I humbly am.

I got email from one of my best friends at home. We went to the same church and were both very involved, etc. Steve wrote to say that our pastor, to whom I am very close and stay in decent contact with even though I have moved away, checked himself into the hospital for depression.

He is a gentle soul and truly pastoral, but he has been struggling for a while now. It's a humongous parish that draws members from all over a city of over a half million people. He is the most loving, caring person you will ever meet -- but he does NOT enjoy being an administrator, which is of course required of a pastor of a parish that size, and he really doesn't have the skills for it. He's been miserable for awhile. A few years ago, after the last time I was hospitalized for depression, he came to see me and we talked about it, and he told me of his depressions too, so since then we have tried to hold each other up as needed.

He was wonderful to me when I was so critically physically ill and spent more than a month in the hospital -- I was out of it for a long time, but nurses told me when I finally started regaining reasonable consciousness that he would just come and sit with me, talk to me, hold my hand for a while, and pray. Once I was reasonably alert most of the time, he came at least every other day and stayed for at least half an hour, just being a comforting presence. I went downhill pretty quick after I was admitted, and friends told me he made an announcement at every service that first weekend asking the parish to pray for me.

He isn't accepting calls or visitors, not that I could visit from 4 hours away, and I just don't know what to do besides ask you to keep this kind man in your thoughts as he works his way through something so many of us are so familiar with.

Thanks.

Candy

Dear, Dear Poopiebear just send him a heartfelt card and know my prayers are being sent
Love
Angie

he is in my prayers........as are you and your friend. pat

Surely. Please do convey with him, perhaps through writing? that many are praying for him.

I think it unfair that churches ask the lead minister to do everything. God called them to be one person...and usually with one main calling (be that preaching or pastoring as primary.) When this occurs, they are without a leader anyway, so it would have been best to hire the assistant to do the tasks necessary beyond the scope of the leader.

TC of yourself Candybear, don't feel at a loss, he will sense your prayers.

I will add my prayers to yours too.

Candybear, for the sake of my memory, could you post to this thread how things are going? I know you posted elsewhere but I can't always connect the various threads and results Hope you are well.

Sky, I got a brief email from him saying thanks for the birthday card, but not much else. I do know he is out of the hospital and recuperating outside of the parish environs. I don't think there is a timetable for his return. He isn't accepting calls or visitors, so I feel lucky to have gotten the email, but he wasn't being too chatty. I'm sure continued prayers would be welcome. Thank you for asking.

Someone else I care deeply about has had a monumental and very public collapse, so no, I'm not very well -- I'm having an extremely difficult time coping with it. Thank god I see pdoc Tuesday.

Thanks for the update... it's easier to keep praying this way (sorry, but I do have my limitations )