When You Can't Relieve Everybody's Suffering--Relieve Just One!

 My little grand niece Kari, Elon's granddaughter, is the brightest, sweetest, happiest, bounciest little girl I've seen in a long, long time!

 

Someone saw her giving her Great-grandpa a hug before he had to leave Elon's place and took a picture of it! Loving little Kari cheered more than one person that day!

My dad had surgery Monday to repair a fistula and a chest port for his dialysis treatments, coming home in a lot of pain. Only one person was allowed in with him, and that had to be my brother who drove the two plus hours to the hospital with him on that hot day.My brother could not take care of everybody that day. Just one. 

But he took care of one person.

I stopped by at my brother's place a couple days earlier to visit his family and daughter who is bedfast with complications of lyme and other coinfections after a weeklong hospital stay recently. Because of her sensitivity to bright light, curtains had been drawn. Elon pulled one window covering down so we could have some light to visit, but otherwise, while a storm brewed outside, we sat in the dark.

I don't like dark. I need the sunshine. I cannot sit in the dark all day every day or I would soon be an invalid, too. But I sat in the dark for one hour for one invalid.

My nieces's dog and her puppy jumped into my lap, possibly nervous about the storm outside. The dog usually spends much of her life curled up contentedly by the feet of her mistress Amaris, but this time, the two dogs climbed right into my lap!

I don't particularly like dogs, but I couldn't help loving those two that jumped right into my lap and sat there.

I couldn't pet and comfort every scared pet that day, but I could comfort the two that jumped into my lap. 

And I could not sit in the dark with every sufferer who sits in prisons of wretchedness and darkness, but I could sit with one.

Some opportunities land in our lap. Others are far away. We can't help them all.

I read a flyer that came in the mail today from Christian Aid Ministries about their new ministry specified for widows, especially widows in India who are rejected as soon as they become widows, and who are often blamed for their husband's deaths. 

I was touched with the stories, and prayed for them. 

I cannot relieve the afflictions of all those millions of widows in India, Eastern Europe, Africa and so many other places, but I can sit with someone who is tied down to home because of an invalid daughter. I can make puzzles with her on a Sunday afternoon, just to spend some happy time with her.

I can't relieve all the widows who are blamed for their husbands' deaths, but I can refrain from blaming someone close to me for how they are dealing with their medical issues or their dying relatives. Dealing with those issues is hard enough without blame. I have a relative and also a friend both who were basically blamed for killing their loved one, even though they and others helping them were carefully and lovingly following hospice's protocol in the final days of life. Blame is a heavy burden to carry.

And I can spend the day with my mother, who is not a widow yet, but who was anxious and worried about my dad while he was at the hospital having the repair surgery. I can include her in my day of canning pickles. I can bring a chair for her so she can sit and watch me picking cucumbers out of Joella's garden. Joella's family was gone for the weekend and had cucumbers coming out their ears, and said I could have all I could pick that weekend. They couldn't provide garden produce for all those widows over there in India, but they could share with a sister who was homesick for fresh garden produce!

So I picked and picked and picked cucumbers from all those lush, climbing vines still blooming with hundreds of yellow flowers! I canned 42 jars of pickles while I was there, and Mom wanted to help, so I had her scrub cucumbers and wash a few dishes. And then I wanted her to sit down so I gave her the job of peeling garlic! She insisted on walking all the way to the end of the drive to the roadside stand to retrieve the little carton of garlic out there.

I admired my mother's balloon flower, called that because the petals form a sort of hollow balloon before opening and blooming!

All the clan met in Elon's home for worship Sunday morning so niece Amaris could be part of worship for once. We couldn't take worship to every homebound invalid, but we could do it for one. And we cannot do that every Sunday, for we need fellowship with others. But we could do it for one Sunday.

We all pitched in for Sunday dinner. I made the cucumber salad and deviled eggs. Others brought watermelon, a huge lettuce salad, casseroles....

home grown green beans and rolls.We couldn't share with all those widows in Africa, but we could share with each other after a weary week.

And we may not be able to spend our lives going around the country playing music or singing for all the nursing homes and assisted living places and churches who need music ministry, but, as our friends the Hudsons and we did yesterday here 17 miles from home, we can play and sing for one!

It's been months since the children played or sang somewhere like this, mostly due to Covid restrictions, but the Hudsons found this assisted living place that wanted us to come and share outdoors.

We set up on a deck of one of the buildings, keeping as close to the shade of the eaves as possible to stay out of the beastly hot sun, and the folk brought their chairs and sat in the lawns and under trees to listen. A music coordinator from Peyton Community Church and his pastor arrived as well, listening down below in the shade. I was afraid our poor little program of strings and singing would not be very impressive, but the music coordinator, all dressed up in cowboy hat and good jeans, came right up and invited us to their open mike event this coming last Saturday of August. "Plan to play for 25 minutes!" he told me. "And afterward there is a real chuck wagon supper!"

Yes, we may not be able to relieve the suffering of everyone in the world. But we can relieve one sufferer. Maybe we can't provide for all the orphans and neglected elderly and handicapped, but we can cheer one, send one card, send one donation for widows, sew one baby quilt for an unwed mother, share one row of extra garden produce, help someone one day, make one meal, clean one car, comfort one child, hug one elderly person about to leave for surgery, care for them when they come home, sit in the wretched darkness with one sufferer, console one anxious puppy, sing for one group of lonely seniors. 

When we cannot relieve everyone, we can still relieve one!