Jason Gray is today’s blogger for Day 9 of the 40 Day Fast, and he shares his story about working with World Vision. Here are a couple excerpts.

I’m a singer/songwriter living in the Minneapolis area and I’ve always believed in music and the power it has to move people, to comfort, to elucidate truth, the help us feel in a world that seems determined to leave us numb to the beauty, terror, hope, and longing all around us and even inside of us. So with a guitar and scraps of words I do my best to feel the weight of my times and hope to help others feel, too. I’m grateful for my work but it involves a lot of time away from family and friends, modest pay, and criticism or indifference with occasional moments of appreciation for my work. I don’t mean to sound like I feel sorry for myself – I’m grateful for what I get to do. But I mean this to say that I began to need more than the vain promises of rock and roll glory to make the requisite sacrifices I make…

The last time I was in Africa, I spent most of my time wrestling with God. Besides personal struggles and trying to process what I had seen of the abysmal poverty there, there was also the matter of our friend Carol who became severely ill the day we arrived in Lesotho and was eventually hospitalized from what appeared to be food poisoning. She and her husband had worked hard to be able to go on this trip in hopes of meeting their sponsored child and seeing the work of World Vision first hand. Though our team prayed fervently for her Carol fell deeper and deeper into the clutches of a violent sickness. “God must have a purpose in this,” some said, or offered similar sentiments to the effect of this somehow being a part of God’s plan.

I get that thought, and it may even be true, but I’m always troubled by how easily those words come to us and I wonder if, sometimes at least, it isn’t our way of dismissing situations that we’d rather not engage, a way of avoiding the mental and spiritual wrestling matches that are troubling and notorious for leaving us re-named and with a permanent limp.

Read his full post here.