Today I helped a granny.
I nearly didn't.
She had a partial beard and hadn't showered and sadly only had one leg. The poor love was also in a wheelchair nudging along a full trolley of stuff- after a staff member bailed on helping her when their shift ended.
We were on our way to get dinner, I was already cranky from a crazy 18 month old lunatic and and 6 year old who hadn't stopped talking since the very second the bell rang at 3:30pm. As she shuffled on past it looked awful, the poor ducky. I pointed her out to Jas and said "awww man that poor cute granny ( I was yet to see her beard) , she is pushing her trolley with the one leg she has!!"
He said "go babe! I can't, I'd just look like a creepy guy to her."
I hesitated.
Don't we all? That split second where you are already tired and wanting the day to end, the kids need dinner or/and a smack on the bot. I SO nearly kept walking, then I was just compelled to just flippen do it.
As I walked over, a whole chunk of me just really genuinely wanted to give her help and get her to the car, but a little sniggle of me assumed people were looking at us thinking how Nobel it was of someone young to help a poor little gran. I pushed the thought out and told that silly Lisa to just be with this lady and give her the help she needs.
She loved it. She talked my ears off. 7 grandchildren- 16, 15, 13, 10, 6, 5 and 3. I know what they are all getting for Christmas- the older ones just get vouchers as it's waaaay too hard to know what's cool these days! Too true my granny friend, too true.
As I walked with her I began thinking to myself that obviously God had hooked this up and that there was a devine supernatural plan to get Jesus to this granny! I thought about working it into a conversation or asking her about Christmas and what the day is like for her. Then I actually shut my head up and just felt to be there. To shoosh, and listen, and giggle at her jokes and just be with her. We called the cab, I wheeled her over to the pick up, we said our goodbyes ( no kiss for the beard ) and that was it. I left thinking, man there was no point to that. God didn't even enter the convo, we didn't switch numbers, I may never see her again. As I raced away with my cliche thought patters of a typical pastors kid, it hit me. Why is any of this about me? So far I had been concerned with the fact that I helped a granny, I needed to tell her about the gospel, I didn't have a good exit plan.
Then I realised ( with a bit of help from the big guy) that I have no idea what today meant to her., and that the entire process was nothing about me. I don't know if that was the only conversation she'd had that day, that week. I don't know if today was the loneliest or most tragic day of her life ( although I do think my new BFF would have told me if she was struggling, she told me everything else on the planet).
I don't know if she considered ending it all when she got home, or if she's lost hope In humanity, or if she had just silently cried out to God for some help with her flippen trolley, or maybe some help with life in general.
All I know is that she was there and so was I. It can be really easy to expect something from a transaction like that. Like there is a method or a " reason" for a situation. Possibly, people just need to be loved, everywhere, all the time, and it is our responsibility as humans to fill the gap when it arises. All the time, whatever it may look like.
What should be a natural, consistent, regular occurrence, was a once off for me. Instead of being content that I helped a granny, I really should be ashamed that so many more people walk in and out of my life and I don't even see them, like really properly see them. Either looking at my phone, or Into my own circumstances, and people and their broken hearts and loneliness just walk on by. It wasn't hard to love that granny, it didn't cost me anything. It shouldn't even be a stand out event. It should be life.
Our culture teaches us to love ourselves, to look after ourselves. To set our lives up and work hard for our houses and over indulge and do things we don't have time for to get things we don't need.
Take the time to see the grannies. I'm glad I did.
Beard and all.
I nearly didn't.
She had a partial beard and hadn't showered and sadly only had one leg. The poor love was also in a wheelchair nudging along a full trolley of stuff- after a staff member bailed on helping her when their shift ended.
We were on our way to get dinner, I was already cranky from a crazy 18 month old lunatic and and 6 year old who hadn't stopped talking since the very second the bell rang at 3:30pm. As she shuffled on past it looked awful, the poor ducky. I pointed her out to Jas and said "awww man that poor cute granny ( I was yet to see her beard) , she is pushing her trolley with the one leg she has!!"
He said "go babe! I can't, I'd just look like a creepy guy to her."
I hesitated.
Don't we all? That split second where you are already tired and wanting the day to end, the kids need dinner or/and a smack on the bot. I SO nearly kept walking, then I was just compelled to just flippen do it.
As I walked over, a whole chunk of me just really genuinely wanted to give her help and get her to the car, but a little sniggle of me assumed people were looking at us thinking how Nobel it was of someone young to help a poor little gran. I pushed the thought out and told that silly Lisa to just be with this lady and give her the help she needs.
She loved it. She talked my ears off. 7 grandchildren- 16, 15, 13, 10, 6, 5 and 3. I know what they are all getting for Christmas- the older ones just get vouchers as it's waaaay too hard to know what's cool these days! Too true my granny friend, too true.
As I walked with her I began thinking to myself that obviously God had hooked this up and that there was a devine supernatural plan to get Jesus to this granny! I thought about working it into a conversation or asking her about Christmas and what the day is like for her. Then I actually shut my head up and just felt to be there. To shoosh, and listen, and giggle at her jokes and just be with her. We called the cab, I wheeled her over to the pick up, we said our goodbyes ( no kiss for the beard ) and that was it. I left thinking, man there was no point to that. God didn't even enter the convo, we didn't switch numbers, I may never see her again. As I raced away with my cliche thought patters of a typical pastors kid, it hit me. Why is any of this about me? So far I had been concerned with the fact that I helped a granny, I needed to tell her about the gospel, I didn't have a good exit plan.
Then I realised ( with a bit of help from the big guy) that I have no idea what today meant to her., and that the entire process was nothing about me. I don't know if that was the only conversation she'd had that day, that week. I don't know if today was the loneliest or most tragic day of her life ( although I do think my new BFF would have told me if she was struggling, she told me everything else on the planet).
I don't know if she considered ending it all when she got home, or if she's lost hope In humanity, or if she had just silently cried out to God for some help with her flippen trolley, or maybe some help with life in general.
All I know is that she was there and so was I. It can be really easy to expect something from a transaction like that. Like there is a method or a " reason" for a situation. Possibly, people just need to be loved, everywhere, all the time, and it is our responsibility as humans to fill the gap when it arises. All the time, whatever it may look like.
What should be a natural, consistent, regular occurrence, was a once off for me. Instead of being content that I helped a granny, I really should be ashamed that so many more people walk in and out of my life and I don't even see them, like really properly see them. Either looking at my phone, or Into my own circumstances, and people and their broken hearts and loneliness just walk on by. It wasn't hard to love that granny, it didn't cost me anything. It shouldn't even be a stand out event. It should be life.
Our culture teaches us to love ourselves, to look after ourselves. To set our lives up and work hard for our houses and over indulge and do things we don't have time for to get things we don't need.
Take the time to see the grannies. I'm glad I did.
Beard and all.
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