My heart is heavy.
Today, my daughter and I visited her great-grandmother in a rehab/nursing center. Granny Nell fell and broke her hip which required surgery. Between surgery and her going back home is some rehabilitation.
Oh my goodness...these places break my heart. Full of people who feel discarded and forgotten. While I enjoyed my visit with Granny, my heart ached for those who looked so lost and lonely.
A smile or a wave. A gentle pat on the arm. A friendly "Hello". These are very simple acts of compassion that I can do to possibly brighten someone's day.
Are we willing to let "That's too difficult for me. It's too sad." (our selfishness) continue to isolate these gentle spirits? Because when we do that, we are saying to them, "You are old. You do not matter." And that is not how these sweet souls should live...thinking they do not matter.
They need to be loved on. Spoken to sweetly. And treated as valuable.
I do not have all the answers. There is no way I can help everybody, and I know that. It is overwhelming for me to think of all the needs and have no way to supply them.
But I can do SOMETHING.
Anything.
And so can you.
Do SOMETHING.
"And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' Matthew 25:40"
3 comments:
Amy, you are so right~ I think about this every time I visit Daniel's dad-His roommate has no one and gets such enjoyment out of listening to our conversations! very sad, but I always try to include him.
Great post. And I think that verse should stop each Christ-follower in his or her tracks to pause and reflect. Thanks!!
Great post with a lot of truth to it. One thing to keep in mind though is that there are many who really are not forgotten. I worked in nursing homes for years, and I would often see family come to visit daily, but often the elderly would forget the visit as soon as it was over, and so the next day when family visited again, they were greeted with, "Why don't you come to visit more? Its been so long, I miss you all so much."
Or even if that was not voiced to the family, the patients would complain to me, "My family doesn't care about me, they never come to visit."
Then there are those who are truly forgotten and never visited. Both were heartbreaking.
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