During my internal vacillation, I tried my darnedest to find ANYTHING else about which to share besides that, so I appealed to friends on social media for suggestions. One of those was from a wonderful girl with whom I shared many hours and thoughts during our time in our youth group. She is facing an uphill battle lately, so her suggestion grabbed my attention immediately because I understand her heart. She shared the idea of acknowledging the friends that come into your life when things are hard and how God would often pair people together for times of trial or certain journeys to be traveled. Since I have now exited my state of denial and avoidance of the issues that I needed to address, I can embrace the things she spoke to me.
As I have mentioned several times before, this period of my life has been extremely difficult. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would go from being a stay-at-home mom to being told that I was being given visitation with my children every other weekend. Then to understand that I would have to surrender that for a while has been, many times, more than I could bear. More. Way more.
My greatest fear though this time would be that my children would have any thought at any time that I CHOSE to leave them - that it was something that I thought I even remotely wanted to do. Their hearts have been my primary concern in life from the very first beat of each of them. I have heard several people tell me that my little ones will understand in time, if they don't already, the truth of my love for them. There have also been critics. There have been a handful of souls that have relished at the opportunity to kick me while I was down and suffering. Those incidents depleted even further something that was already emaciated.....but I am not starved.
"You ok? I feel unease from your energy. Maybe you are just busy today" - This text clicked into my phone as I was furiously packing the day I left my home in Florida to come to Oklahoma. My soul was being rushed by ambulance straight into surgery. I hadn't yet told a soul what was going on, but my loving friend felt it and darted to my emotional bedside.
"No. Tell me more" I begged of her.
"I don't know. I just feel like you are feeling defeated when you shouldn't be. You are strong and independent and you have come so far." That was the first one and one of the most poignant to me.
There were many in the days that followed. Another one included a private message to me on social media which included the loving admonitions of Abilene Clark so I would remember that, despite my hurdles, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important".
As I began to answer questions of people that inquired, I began to feel more love. So many decided not to criticize me. They comforted me. They warmed me with their support.
Still I felt very battered and tired at answering a lot of questions, so I broke the news to my friends and family corporately by writing the blog post "On being judged for shopping". I knew if I left any holes there, the loving ones would come to me and ask gentle questions or they would just accept the holes and offer me their love in spite of them. I was so comforted when I realized I was correct.
It is very difficult for me to list every way people have shown me love because there have just been so many ways.
One day I got a private message from one of my oldest friends asking me for my address. She told me "I have something to send you. It's nothing big. It's just a few of my favorite things." Days later, I received an appropriately wrapped "brown paper package, tied up with string" bearing a cardstock tag that read "a few of my favorite things". I saved that silly little tag with it's twine binding. The box had a bunch of fantastic fun things and even some baked goods made by my friend. The thing that was MY favorite though, is untouchable, unseeable if you just quickly glance at the box. It is love. It is thought. It is time. It is support. THAT'S what my friend was sending me by filling a box with small gifts. I got it. I got it all, and I'll never forget it.
Because our travel for Christmas was unplanned, our income (supplied solely by Dan's work since I do not yet have any) was going to be stretched even slightly beyond what was actually there. I knew the kids needed presents for Christmas, but I just kept pushing the thought out of my mind because of the hopelessness of the cause. It wasn't hopeless though. We got handed envelopes of cash inscribed with the words "for Christmas for the kids" from people who have never even met them. We received cards in the mail with checks in them. Christmas was supplied. My kids' needs were supplied. I didn't even have enough faith originally to think to ask God for a way to do that. He just did it instead. On the occasion of receiving one of these gifts, I just sat on the front steps and sobbed. I felt so important to God in that moment, and I realized how important my kids are to Him as well. My hope for their lives was restored. The realization that, despite the terribleness of what has happened to them, they have NOT been forgotten by the One who writes their story.
I will also never forget the countless people that have spontaneously (or so they thought) sent me messages telling me that they had just been thinking about me a lot and wanted to know if I was alright. Some of these had been totally ignorant of the events of my life immediately preceding their asking about it. They just wanted to be love to me.
You were, friends. You still are.
Most of us have seen videos or digital slide shows of ones who snapped a selfie every day for a year to see how they've grown or changed. The day I left my home, the thought crossed my mind to do the same. I took a picture of myself every day for about a week, and then I forgot about the project partially because I got a different phone with a local number. The other day, though, I recalled my abandoned project, so I charged up the phone and scrolled through the gallery. What I found there was heartbreaking. I looked dead. My eyes were dead. The area of my face around my mouth almost looked melted. There was no hint of smile there. No hint of hope. This was on a day when I was posting some makeup selfies to Instagram - pictures that I looked at after slight edits and decided genuinely that even the raw versions were.....pretty.
I had survived.....again. I had jumped a hurdle.....again. I had come out on the other side with my fist thrust victoriously into the air.....again.
If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me "You are SO strong, Sarah!", I would be able to take myself on a very adequate shopping adventure and be able to afford to have someone lug my parcels around for me - or just have them delivered. You are right. I am strong. I am tenacious, and my will is built of iron. I do not give up. If you put a wall in my face that is too high for me to scale or jump, I'm gonna chip through it Shawshank style.
Why? What has given me hope in times where I was totally shattered?
Friends......you.....love.....hope.
It does not matter to me what religious philosophy to which you do or don't ascribe. I can just tell you about what I know - what I've experienced.
I have spent days in this world utterly and totally alone. All my loved ones were away from my reach sometimes not even able to take calls from me over the phone. My friendships were so limited in number that they were a scant resource for the amount of my need, but Hope remained. In the moments when the silence of friendship made my heart sob, Hope was there. "I'm not done, Sarah. Just trust me. I have never left you, and I have not forsaken you. I didn't lose you. You are mine. Just wait." That waiting was terrible. There were days that my belly ached not just from being empty but from the sickening worry that I was stuck - that there was no way out. Just the moment that I would throw up my hands, a little encouragement would come. Somewhere, somehow, a little light would peek through the storm of my life.
That's where you came in. Even if I don't know you personally, you are reading this. You are waiting for the end of the story maybe even silently cheering me on. You're supporting me. I've had a lot of that. I've had so many people do things for me from handing me envelopes filled with hundreds of dollars in cash to being given a vehicle to finding a cupcake or a sandwich with my name on it in sharpie. I've been given more hugs than I can count - genuine, real hugs that last for a fantastically long time so the giver could adequately communicate to me that I was worth something to them....that they loved me.
The love part is so great. I feel embarrassed a lot of time for the outpouring of love that I have received. Some have given it opportunistically so they could puff out their chest and tell others about their magnanimous delivery of wonderful sentiment or so they could hold it over my head to serve a purpose that I did not originally see. They yanked their love back, but I still benefited from those times. God has used every bit, and given me times of true, unadulterated, selfless love that I could never deny that it really exists in its truest form.....for me.
Do you know what that love has done for me? It has made me really, really strong. Do you understand why? Did you ever see one of those cliche scenes in a movie where there's a scrawny kid or a damsel in distress that is toe to toe with some nefarious personality and then cackle out in laughter because you, the omniscient viewer, know that, just outside the line of sight of the attacker, there's a huge gang of bigger kids or a ninja waiting to defend? Sometimes the almost victim even looks smugly straight into the eye of the villain....because they know who's got their back. That's me. I'm the smug one.
I am not endlessly strong. I am not a phenomena of strength or resource. It's because I have you. Sometimes you're waiting one at a time, and sometimes you appear in droves, but, whatever life throws my way, you are there. That is why I appear so strong.
Do you know that I'm not the only one? Look around you. I bet you've also got your own army of hope. If you don't see them, you've at least got me.....and I've got them (gestures with thumb over my shoulder). We're here.
I also want you to think about being a part of that army for someone else. Feeling good and strong at the moment? Do some looking around. Slow down. Listen a little more than you talk. The ones in distress are all around you. They're not looking to con anyone. They're not looking for handouts. They're just actually in need. They might need a few dollars for a meal. Look around you. These ones might not fit the stereotype of a person on the street dresses in an unseasonable number of layers. You know that one at work that waits in the break room after everyone else's lunch is over so they can dig half eaten sandwiches out of the trash or sneak the bread you left on the table after your meal at Panera? You probably didn't notice that before. You know that girl at school or church or wherever that dresses strangely and insists that the one she wears several times a week is her favorite? Probably it isn't. It's just the only one she's got. That gregarious personality that fills up a room when they walk in and seems like command corporate audience any time they enter? Well guess what. They do that because it's never given to them one on one.
Be that friend. People don't need to be projects. That is actually a very ugly thing to do. Just start with acts of kindness.
Buy an entire MEAL from Panera for the sneaker and then leave it in the fridge and nonchalantly say "Hey, your lunch looks amazing! What is it?" When they question what you're talking about, play dumb and say "The box from Panera in the fridge with your name on it". Watch how fast they go running! They'll know it's from you, and they'll love it! Don't play dumb when they thank you for it. Just say "Well you're welcome. I know you at least like their bread, so I thought I'd give you something to sit down for a minute and enjoy.
The girl with the eye for her favorite shirt? You know you see her go into the same store all the time and then leave with no bag of purchases (or anything stolen - she just likes that stuff....btw, this can also be a "he"). Save up a little cash and buy a gift card and slip it to them. Be Santa!!!!
And then the untouchable socialite. Pay them a genuine compliment and strike up a conversation, and the next time you are headed somewhere fun with a SMALL group, invite them. Get to know them. Give them the attention for which they're so starved.
And finally, the actual homeless. I used to be in an environment where the perspective on these ones was nothing but critical. "They're too lazy to get a stinkin job, and they're probably just gonna go get drunk off my money anyway." Um.....so I was homeless. I lived in a shelter. That is not a home, and I became acquainted with hearts that had actually lived on the streets. They were not lazy. Life had just dealt them so hard a hand that the paperwork necessary to procure a job was outside their reach or they had been forced to make a decision that earned them a charge against their record that now disqualifies them from most employers with whom they could hope to build a future. They NEVER would have chosen to have that as part of their story had they been given any.....choice. And let's talk about the alcohol. You know what, sometimes the only respite they get from the stress of spending all day and all night hiding from law enforcement for their vagrancy is to get drunk. It takes the edge off. A great number of them have had that alone to allow them to cope for so long that, if they did not get something to feed the physical side of their dependancy, it would send them into DT's in the yard of a business with no one around to call 911 as they lay their convulsing while they writhe in their own vomit. Also, when it's cold, they don't have an inside to go inside, they just want something to make them feel a little less of the sting of the low temperature. There is always also the very distinct possibility and reality that they're going to take your $5 and go buy something to fill the belly of theirs that has had nothing in it but the watery fake mashed potatoes and grissly meat from the food bank that offers help within its already stretched resources.....just be their friend. I was one phone call from being one of them. One phone call.
This is my thing, just be a friend. Before you even try to think about changing a person's whole life or how you can help "fix" things, be a friend, because somewhere out there, there's another me. There's another fighter who has not given up. They are hanging with a grip so tight their palms are raw to a strand of hope. They just need a little more. You have no idea how much the smallest acts mean.
Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world".
The Bible says "Love your neighbor as yourself".
I say (though I do not have nearly the credentials of either of the above sources - just my own knowings) "Show love. Show friendship. Give hope."
No comments:
Post a Comment