Food

This is something that I wrote last summer:



Sometimes, it is the simple acts of giving that are the biggest agents of change. I was at work one day, simply doing what I am paid to do. I was trying to discharge a homeless man from the Emergency Department. My tasks as a nurse were done. My tasks as a Christian were not. I felt a sense of duty to secure a cab ride for this man. I wanted to feed him. Angry at the delay, he started to yell at me, and call me names. I did not react to his lashing out, because I realized that he was wounded and scared. Yet, he was starting to disturb the other patients and bother the doctor. So, I finally said very firmly to him, “Sit down and be quiet. You are not leaving here until I feed you!”. What happened next changed me in many ways. He sat down on the end of the stretcher, buried his head in his hands and began to sob. He managed to ask me a question. His voice was raw and filled with hurt. “Why do you want to help me?” It was the question that had lived deep inside of me for many years. It was the same question that I had not had the courage to ask those around me. As I looked at his tears falling at our feet, I took a deep breath. The answer washed over me in a flood of my own emotions. “Simply because you are human. Every human deserves help and love.”

I found a sandwich in the refrigerator and brought it to his room. He began to eat, slowly. He seemed humbled and grateful for a moment of dignity. In those few short moments, I realized the immense privilege it had been for me to feed this man. I had a glimpse at what Christ meant when he said when you feed them, you also feed Me.

At church the next Sunday, my day was filled with my own tears. I managed to tell someone that I was having a hard time accepting the fact that she loved me. I confessed my own sins of lashing out and deflecting the love given to me by others. I realized that I had been asking the wrong question. I had been asking “Why would you hurt me?” I had been stuck in my wounds, waiting to be hurt. In that, I had forgotten the most important part of Love. It is in the fullness of the receiving that God is most present. This man showed me where I had failed. God’s love is ever present, all reaching and bigger than we could ever imagine. We don’t earn it, or have the ability to return it. It simply is there for the receiving. Every single human on the face of the earth deserves to know God’s love. Yet, we can only see it through the other humans around us. It takes courage, trust and humility to see it. Sometimes we get hurt. Sometimes others lash out at us. Sometimes we suffer deep betrayals. Yet, even in the deepest of wounds, God can reach us. Sometimes, we just need have someone tell us “Sit down and let me feed you.”