Here I Am, Lord; Send Me

I almost never get the chance to read all of the forwards that my many friends send me, generally because I don't have much time to go through them all. Occasionally, though, I take a break from my busy mornings and open one or two intriguing subjects that I've never seen before, and more often than not it was totally worth the few minutes of my time. Today I opened one of those emails which contained the following story, said to have been written by a Metro Denver Hospice Physician:

I was driving home from a meeting this evening about 5, stuck in traffic on Colorado Blvd., and the car started to choke and splutter and die - I barely managed to coast into a gas station, glad only that I would not be blocking traffic and would have a somewhat warm spot to wait for the tow truck. It wouldn't even turn over. Before I could make the call, I saw a woman walking out of the quickie mart building, and it looked like she slipped on some ice and fell into a gas pump, so I got out to see if she was okay.

When I got there, it looked more like she had been overcome by sobs than that she had fallen; she was a young woman who looked really haggard with dark circles under her eyes. She dropped something as I helped her up, and I picked it up to give it to her. It was a nickel.

At that moment, everything came into focus for me: the crying woman, the ancient Suburban crammed full of stuff with 3 kids in the back (1 in a car seat), and the gas pump reading $4.95.

I asked her if she was okay and if she needed help, and she just kept saying 'I don't want my kids to see me crying,' so we stood on the other side of the pump from her car. She said she was driving to California and that things were very hard for her right now. So I asked, 'And you were praying?' That made her back away from me a little, but I assured her I was not a crazy person and said, 'He heard you, and He sent me.'

I took out my card and swiped it through the card reader on the pump so she could fill up her car completely, and while it was fueling, walked to the next door McDonald's and bought 2 big bags of food, some gift certificates for more, and a big cup of coffee. She gave the food to the kids in the car, who attacked it like wolves, and we stood by the pump eating fries and talking a little.

She told me her name, and that she lived in Kansas City. Her boyfriend left 2 months ago and she had not been able to make ends meet. She knew she wouldn't have money to pay rent Jan. 1, and in desperation had finally called her parents, with whom she had not spoken in about 5 years. They lived in California and said she could come live with them and try to get on her feet there.

So she packed up everything she owned in the car. She told the kids they were going to California for Christmas, but not that they were going to live there. I gave her my gloves, a little hug and said a quick prayer with her for safety on the road. As I was walking over to my car, she said, 'So, are you like an angel or something?'

This definitely made me cry. I said, 'Sweetie, at this time of year angels are really busy, so sometimes God uses regular people.'

I've been reflecting on this story for the last hour. The first thought that occured to me was that when you are working for the Lord, He always puts you right where He wants you to be.

My second thought was, "How many times have I been so self-absorbed that I missed an opportunity like this?"

It's not that we are mean-spirited egoists, constantly wrapped up in our own lives; it's just that sometimes, when something bad happens to us, some of us might dwell on our own situation. While this is understandable, the fact is, the more we dwell on our own lives, the less we are able to love others. This man knew his situation was under control. What would have been the sense in dwelling on it?  Had he been doing anything but simply waiting, he might not have been able to see this woman's situation for what it was, and completely missed the opportunity to literally save her life. 

We may not be able to whip out a credit card, but if we're paying attention (getting back to my first thought), we have many opportunities every day to love one another as Christ intends.  We can't be anything for someone else when we're only thinking of ourselves.

At the end of this story as it was sent to me, the physician's car starts right up and he drives home without incident; but where does his gratitude lie? "It was so incredible to be a part of someone else's miracle." This is true humility--the ability to not think of yourself at all. Something tells me he would have said the same thing if he rode home in the front seat of a towtruck.

As we enter into the holiday season, may we all have the kind of faith that makes us forget all about us, so we can be ready for our Lord when He decides to send us.

O Lord, It's Hard To Be Humble...

"I'll take a water with lemon, but wait, can you wash the lemon?"

"Ok, I know exactly what I want. It's between a chocolate chip cookie and a peanut butter cookie."

"Wait. Come back to me. I still don't know what I want."

"Can you bring my salad with my dinner instead of before?"

"I'll take my salad before. And can you add some shredded chicken on top of it? Your chicken salad has too much stuff in it for me."

The eight of us were quite a handful for our young waitress (she did great, by the way). Between our crazy requests and two of us doing our best impersonation of Munchkinland's Lollipop Guild representatives from the Wizard of Oz, I'm surprised she didn't lose her mind.

"Who has more fun than us?"

Not many. We'd just come from a Cursillo planning meeting (email me if you want to know more about Cursillo), and we were pretty pumped up. Working for the Lord has that effect on me--on all of us. We are business when we have to be business, but once the meeting is over, we spend the next hour or so telling stories, regurgitating movie lines, poking fun at each other's strange ordering habits (wash the lemon???), and laughing, laughing, laughing.

We felt many eyes on us as we carried on, especially when we stopped to join hands and pray as our food came. Silently in our hearts we prayed for each of them--that in their hearts they get to know the joy of the Lord the way we do.

That's not to say that we don't but heads once in a while. When people are passionate about their beliefs, they will defend them--loudly, and sometimes mercilessly. And in an organization that is as tightly knit as ours, feelings get trampled. It happens because we are human, and susceptible to the effects sin. The human factor is both the greatest strength and the greatest liability of ministry.

Letting go of these hurts, especially at the hands of people we consider family, is much more than necessary. It's what Christ commands us: "As I have loved you, so you also should love one another." (Jn 13:34) Notice Jesus didn't say, "but wait until you've gotten over your feelings." Pulling our loved ones close to us once again, AFTER we are hurt, is a requirement of discipleship...and "requirement" doesn't quite cover it. It takes something that every one of us at that table the other night work very hard to maintain in our lives: Humility.

Just last night, my good friend Laurie said to a group of us something very profound. She said that being humble doesn't mean "thinking less of yourself"; it means "being freed from thinking of yourself at all". Christ's perfect humility is what enabled Him to carry that cross. Christ's perfect humility is what enabled Him to say, "Father, forgive them." Its why God Himself bent down and did the most menial of things-washed His Apostles' feet. It's why He returned to the ones who ran, hid, even deined knowing him, in order to continue what He started in them.

Sadly, humility isn't really recognized in this culture as a virtue. It's the reason that I believe the concept of Love has been so grossly distorted. We have been conditioned to believe that "Love" is a feeling we get, and something of which we are a worthy object. If a person is giving me what I want and making me feel a certain way, then I love them.

This phrase is etched in our society's vocabulary, and it doesn't even make sense! We love. We are a lover. We are loved. Do we even recognize that LOVE is a VERB? Verbs are actions WE do. I love someone when I am the one giving; when I am the one doing. Since we have no idea as a society what love really is, "loving one another" is a concept slipping into obscurity.

But not among that group around the dinner table the other night. We have been through a lot together, and have seen from bad to the worst in each other. We have even been hurt at one point or another by each other, whether directly or indirectly; intentionally or unintentionally. Don't get me wrong, we feel the pain, and as sinning human beings sometimes just can't get past ourselves right away. But as we continue to practice humility, we are able to let all of that go. That was the source of our joy--knowing that it's in the act of forgiving that we get past our feelings and truly love one another as the Lord intends.