In the valley- moment by moment

     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