This is going to be the first of a series of blogs which will attempt to catch up on the last ten days.
Last Friday Team Shiloh visited a home founded by Mother Teresa. This place houses the severely handicapped. We walked into a courtyard filled with women. Some were lying on beds, some in wheelchairs, others in highchairs, a few able to walk around and sit on benches. For the next couple of hours we loved on these women, fed them their lunch, held their hands.
That night we sat in Joseph and Mercy’s living room and talked about the day. There were definitely some varied reactions to our time of ministry at the home. Reactions that I completely understand. It’s a bit difficult to explain my reaction and feel like it makes sense.
I have loved the ministry this month, don’t get me wrong. I haven’t felt suppressed or stifled or had a desire to do be doing something else. But I felt more alive in the time we spent at the home than I have at any other time this month.
I don’t enjoy the suffering that these women are enduring. I don’t enjoy seeing their deformed bodies or blank stares. I don’t enjoy the fact that they are not capable of feeding or dressing themselves.
I didn’t enjoy the fact that people experience tragic accidents. I didn’t enjoy seeing people in pain. I didn’t enjoy the fact that people needed a crash cart and chest compressions. I didn’t enjoy the fact that major traumas do happen, that people bleed out, that one person dies and not another.
But I love what I am getting to do. I am realizing what makes me feel alive.
I felt alive when I could sit with these women in their suffering. I felt alive when I could hold a deformed hand, when I could occasionally catch their stare. I felt alive when I could straighten their clothing and put a spoon to their mouth to feed them.
Suffering happens. It is happening. I’m not a stranger to seeing it. I don’t enjoy it. But that is where I love to be. I love being able to be the hand that feeds, the touch that comforts, the strength that holds pressure to an arterial bleed, the voice that speaks love. I’m learning how to do this more. To be stronger about it. To feel more emotion in it.
