All in a day's work

I didn't enjoy having to call the police this afternoon about a man called Anthony who was refusing to leave the churchyard after smashing a window in a neighbouring house and punching someone in the stomach. He was very drunk, but the sad thing was that he was visiting the grave of his daughter who had died in 1991 at the age of 2. He said that she'd been murdered. I agreed to let him stay for a couple of hours, and when i came back he was lying on the grave, asleep. But when he refused to move I had to call the police. It's so hard - you can't reason with people when they are drunk, or even comfort them. The police never turned up, but Anthony moved off eventually, wheeling himself rather uncertainly along the middle of the road, shouting at the passers by.

What can you do with someone's hurt and rage like that? I suppose it has been turned into prayer before now by the psalmists. I couldn't help Anthony, but I can hold him up in my prayers with the knowledge that Jesus knew how to get near to people who were cut off from others by illness, or by antisocial behaviour.