I am here at home today, the sun is
shining brightly, the birds sing joyfully in the woods outside my window as I
sit resting. I have things to do at work, people I need to meet with but I sit here
at home resting. It is not by my choice I am home from work, it is a must do
because I am ill.
Much to my amazement, things I care deeply
about are being taken away from me one by one. Over two weeks ago all driving
was removed from my life for a time. Yesterday I got word that this had been
extended for another 30 days pending more test results.
After a week or two at home I researched
optional transportation routes to get to my work which is in another State.
Family? Well, they have their own jobs, and own families. Bus? Well, I live in a rural area and there is
limited bus service, but there is bus
service. After finding out the times and location, one early morning I gingerly
walked the half mile to the bus stop and waited until a bus appeared. I got on
and was informed it was going to another city. I waited and got on the next bus, going the
right direction. Again, I was the only passenger.
It was different riding along in the small
bus along the country roads. Outside, the hills and forests were still bursting
forth in their spring, growth greenery. Me, clutching my purse like the
proverbial “old” woman rode along to the transfer point where I was again the
only passenger. A few blocks from my work I was let off and I walked into my
office. I hadn’t been there in almost two weeks and it felt weird. Going
through my patient files, retrieving phone messages I tried to figure out where
I was in terms of paperwork, phone calls and faxes.
As I sorted things out, I noticed I really
didn’t feel all that well. I had severe kidney pain, and just an overall “not
good” feeling. The day seemed to stretch out interminably and until finally
seven thirty arrived. One family member had agreed to drive me home that day, since
the last bus was long gone at 4 pm. Even though I had continued to feel
increasingly “not good” during the work
day I had been told several times; “You have to come to the meeting tomorrow
it’s very important.” So the next day, I got up, got ready and walked down the
steep hill to the bus stop. The road down the hill I live on follows the path
of a creek and woodlands where patches of bleeding hearts grow profusely along
the pathway I walked. I reached down and touched their tender blossoms and
picked one for my pocket. As a child, spring would find me tramping the woods
alone to find the new bleeding hearts where I would pick bunches for my mother
to put in a vase near her kitchen sink.
On the bus ride, the
driver and I talked and I learned his wife had died some time before and he had
tried going to church but just didn’t fit in. I invited him to my church which
coincidentally, we passed on his daily route. At work, the pain in my kidneys
worsened and I did my best to listen to a myriad of agenda items for new
processes, ways to improve existing processes and general program updates.
Finally, long, pro-longed questions and
discussion I had to move into the hallway, I just wasn’t feeling all that well.
A day earlier, one of
my children had mentioned to me to ask my employer to adjust my schedule while
I was prohibited from driving. I was worried about doing that but after briefly
reviewing the ADA (American’s with Disabilities Act) I realized employers were
now being directed to provide reasonable accommodations for employees who get
sick while being employed. I summoned my courage and emailed Human Resources to
ask for reasonable accommodations. After the meeting finally ended, the potluck
completed I realized the pain was becoming unbearable and called my doctor.
I continued to gut
through my pain and completed my shorter work day and walked to the bus
station. Once there I walked inside to presumably wait peaceably out of the
cold for the bus to come. Well, I was wrong about the peaceable part. Through
the window I could see a woman talking furiously to herself. She appeared
agitated. She carried several bags and a large back pack. She continued to talk
into the air and entered the bus station muttering to herself. She sat her
stuff down and continued to ramble while searching through her belongings.
“Speak
to her,” came the still small voice that I know is God’s urging. I prayed silently claiming God’s presence
over her and over her obvious confusion. She shook a little, waved her hands
and appeared to calm down a little. I began with general conversation.
“Kind of
cold out today isn’t it?”
She looked at me, kind of sized me up then answered, “Yes,
it’s kind of cold” she answered. As she continued to look
frantically through her stuff I asked her gently, “Did you lose something?”
She answered me “Yes, that last bus driver
wouldn’t wait for me and took off and I think I dropped my bus pass.”
“What does it look
like?” I asked her.
She replied, “It’s
blue.”
“I’ll go look,” I told
her and walked outside and looked around the bus platform. The cold, chill
brisk wind continued to blow trash and leaves but I could not find any blue bus
pass.
I went back in and told
her, “Sorry I couldn’t find your bus pass. “
She replied, “That’s
ok, I found a quarter at the last bus stop.”
Two other people
entered the bus station. One a young man with a dazed look about him, the other, a taller older man who began talking
with him.
“You can’t stay with
me, they won’t allow it. You’ve got to come get your stuff now.” The older man
said emphatically.
“I can’t”, the younger
man replied dejectedly. “Just throw it away.”
The other man
persisted, “No, you need your sleeping bag and the tent. Just go where I told
you and you can camp out there and nobody will bother you.”
The young man replied
with a tired, vacant sounding voice, “I tried to find where it was but I
couldn’t find it, I was just lost.”
The older man more
insistently told him once again, “You have to get your stuff today. I can’t
keep it there.”
The younger man
answered despondently, “I just can’t. ”
With one last, “Get
your stuff!” the older man left and the younger man stared in my direction.
“I don’t have any place
to live. Are you going out of town?” He asked me with an intensity of
inquisitiveness that alarmed me. My mind envisioned him boarding the rural bus
with me and getting off at my stop trying to follow me home.
And then, forgive me
God, I lied. “No,” I answered him quietly. Looking at him I realized he was
desperate and more than a little confused. I listened to him ask the woman I
had been talking with earlier if she had a smoke.
Cheerfully she answered
him, “Yes, I happened to find one lying on the ground and I snatched it up. I
don’t smoke myself but I knew someone would want it.”
The cigarette exchanged
hands and an odd conversation between the three of us ensued.
“There’s a nice shelter
in Kelso” I told him. He continued to stare vacantly. “I knew someone who
stayed there and they said the people were nice to them.”
The woman piped in,
“Yes the people are nice there but you’ve got to watch your stuff ‘cause the
people who live there will steal from you.”
Hoping to encourage the
young man to seek shelter I asked the women, “Is the food good there?”
“Yes the food is good.’
She answered.
Hoping to connect him
with other resources I her asked about meals at the Broadway House, (another
local homeless shelter where I had volunteered once serving meals.)
“Oh that place has
changed,” the woman answered. “Now they won’t let anybody eat there unless you
live there. Ever since the new guy took over they don’t help the homeless as
much anymore.”
“What about the
Salvation Army?” I asked. “Don’t they still serve meals?”
“Yes,” she replied,
“But only Monday through Friday. On the weekends a church in Kelso has the
Urban café where you can get some food.”
The young man continued
to watch us, listening. He looked at my purse then at me. “Great,” I thought, “Here
I am an old woman with a purse. Why don’t I just make myself a bigger target?”
The door swung open and
two men came lumbering in. The one man talked gently to the other who was
swaying back and forth, unable to walk a straight line. They moved towards the
row of seats where I was sitting and the drunk man fell down a few feet from
where I sat. He struggled to rise up again and I moved before he could fall
across my lap. Inside the glass walled window, the bus station assistants
didn’t bat an eye or pay any attention, apparently this kind of thing was old
hat to them. I said goodbye to the woman and man and moved quickly outside. It
was getting too chaotic for me and I was beginning to feel unsafe.
Outside, the cold,
crisp wind blew into my face as I waited for the small shuttle bus that would
take me home. I thought to myself as I waited, “How funny it is that I would be
reading the Gospels, (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and trying to find the
heart of Jesus and then be exposed to this real reality of suffering and pain
of homeless people living in the heart of the city right next to where I work.
“God,” I silently
prayer, “What are you trying to show me?”
As I waited, it crossed
my mind that God was trying to give me a wake up call of sorts about what I was
really doing with my life. On the surface, being a drug and alcohol counselor
sounds like a noble cause. You’re
helping people who have horrible, life impacting addictions. Well, that’s the
idealist viewpoint. In reality, I can’t talk about God. I can’t share the
message of hope in Jesus, and other than give them lists of resources, or a
referral to mental health services, I can’t do much except listen and educate.
How much am I really helping to lift the overwhelming burdens people have? Is there something else I could be doing that
would do more to really help people?
One thing that is
becoming increasingly real to me as I read and re-read the Gospels is the
awareness of how often Jesus felt compassion for suffering people. There are
many accounts where Jesus was with people and was moved with compassion. He
ministered spiritually and He ministered physically. Increasingly I’m beginning
to believe that the church and I individually should be doing more to impact
the suffering people are experiencing in the real world. My hobbies, my
interests although good in themselves have distracted me from a more noble
purpose.
In Isaiah 58:6-8, we are told to:
“Loose the bonds of
wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, break every
yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, bring to your house the poor who are
cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and don’t hide yourself
from your own family.” There is a
current song I love with the refrain, There is power in the name of Jesus, Break every chain, break every chain,
break every chain.” That phrase has so
much meaning on so many levels. “Where in
this picture am I?” I wonder to myself. “I’m barely making a dent in all this
sea of need.”
At church last Sunday
evening our pastor had shared that he felt God was impressing on him that one
of us there was going to have a ministry outside of the church sphere, that we
would go physically away from the area. When the pastor said that, I thought to
myself, “It’s me. I know it’s me. I
don’t know how, and I don’t know where but I believe it’s me that’s going
away.”
So here I am a day or
so later, wearing a heart monitor, kidneys hurting, on medication to try to help
that prohibit me going in the sun. I am feeling dizzy on and off and have to
press my “event” heart monitor and label the symptoms. I don’t sound much like
a candidate to go somewhere and minister. I can’t even leave my own house. Right
now, it doesn’t even look like I can function normally much less be called to a
mission/ministry somewhere to help hurting people.
Never-the-less God, is
the Lord of the harvest. He is the God
that heals the broken-hearted. He is the God of the impossible made possible. Just
because it looks like I am the last person on the list of who’s who to help the
helpless doesn’t mean God can’t change my circumstances. If this impression I’m
having that I will go away an work in a ministry helping people is just that an
impression, I won’t be going anywhere to help anybody. If it’s God will and His
calling, things will change, I will change and circumstances will change. He
will make a way where there is no way.
Well, I will continue
to share with you what happens on my continuing adventure of, moment by moment.
Let’s discover together what God leads me through or to.
In your own life, may
God grant you comfort and wisdom to discover His continuing will and way for
your own life.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:5-11
Sitting at home in my recliner this morning looking out
the window on a gray world; skies leaden
with dull mask covering the golden sun. It is ok, I remember yesterday with its
warmth, sunshine and beauty; and more importantly I believe the sun will shine
again. I cannot work today, I am hurting after having an invasive biopsy and I
sit waiting for my body to heal.
Read my Bible this morning, the last few chapters of
Mark. Re-reading Mark this time through I’ve began to see more clearly how many
emotions Jesus had. This is impactful for me because somewhere along the line
of my life I had picked up the notion Jesus was a Stoic. By that I mean he was
able to observe life, people with their flaws, sins and vices and not
experience the anger, hurt, and disappointment that “normal” people do. I guess
I best can explain it by talking about Spock on Star Trek. (Right now I can
envision some of my family reading this saying, “Good grief, now she’s really
gone off the rails.”)
Spock was half human, half alien. He could
dispassionately observe a stressful situation and make a calm, collected
analysis, often bugging Bones (the Dr) or the Captain. They alternately valued
his analysis and despised his inability to empathize with their agonizing
emotions about those same issues. Growing up as an emotional, musical child who
was, and am anything but calm, cool and collected, I somehow translated this
into perceiving Jesus, as God/man as having the ability to not experience the
uncomfortableness of feeling.
