People Watching

Well...it might not be classified as people watching if the people come to you.

In our ministry, we have a variety of people that step over the threshold of our doors. Some are milking the system, and others are genuinely in need of a helping hand--and those are the people that we get out of bed every morning for (and the others too, because they need Jesus just as much!). Today was one of those days where, for the 9,854,234,230,456 time I was reminded that people are not always what they seem.

Some officers stick to their specific schedule and refuse to bend on their appointment times, meeting with people, etc. We try to keep a schedule--more for our sanity and protecting ourselves from burnout--but we are pretty flexible too, and always try to work with our clients to be there for them when they need us (we are not above staying late or coming early if someone needs assistance and can't get away from their job to come during our business hours). This morning was one of those cases. I found that I was spending all of my time seeing clients on a walk-in basis that I wasn't getting anything else done, so I started to designate certain days and times for assistance (our volunteers run our food pantry, but I provide vouchers to the thrift store and utility assistance). This morning I had someone come in without an appointment while I was running errands and insist on waiting until I got there. When I walked in, I looked at this couple and made some assumptions, and was very firm in my initial conversation with them. As I worked with them a bit further, I found out more of their situation and immediately felt like an idiot for my initial judgment of them, and felt like the assistance that I was authorized to provide them was not enough, so I worked with my contacts at the utility company to give them even further assistance. They were grateful and I was humbled.

Later in the day came my few hours of scheduled appointments, and a whole other perspective. Some clients come prepared to their appointments with everything they were told to bring, and others spend five minutes digging through papers to find their paperwork. People have very interesting filing systems (I'm one to talk, my desk looks like a paper mill explosion at the current time). Regardless of preparedness, the clients knew from the get-go what they needed to be deemed eligible for utility assistance and were ready to work with me--some received what they expected, and others sat there and sobbed because they didn't expect what little we could do (and in turn, I sit there and cry with them...I pray I never lose that tender heart).

Then there were those unexpected client events of the day. We recently started a new application process for our social services because we were not gathering the proper (or enough) information on our clients to report to the USDA and meet our national social service standards. We also added some questions to our new applications to help us in bridging that gap between social services and our corps ministry. It is now common practice for our volunteers to grab myself or my husband to pray with a client or provide them information on our programs and worship. My husband was summoned downstairs (our office is a loft above our social services) to pray with a client, and got to learn some more about this individual and her current situation. It's so interesting to learn about people and their faith walk in crisis. This woman had a tumor the size of a basketball removed from her stomach and was seeking prayer for continued healing and also for praise because yesterday she found out that the tumor wasn't cancer! (I share this as she seeks the prayers of those that will pray for her in her recovery) After going through what she has gone through, you could expect someone who was seeking sympathy and possibly even bitter over the events of her life...but instead she was so grateful for life and the assistance that she sought to make it by until she could return to work next month.

People fascinate me. They exceed or fall short of our expectations, but it's always a surprise. It is my daily prayer that my own biases do not stand in the way of me serving others and allowing them to see Christ through me. The people that come through our paths teach us daily, some serve as reminders of the way we need to love others as God loves them, and others are a reminder that sometimes loving others means to work alongside them in confronting those stumbling blocks that they have allowed to take residence in their path.

Many times in working with people, I find that they teach me in far greater ways than the assistance that I can provide benefits their current situation. My "life verse" (I've never liked that term) is Psalm 86:11 that says, "Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." This is a constant, ever changing prayer in my life. Some days it's "teach me, Lord," and other days it is "give me an undivided heart because my brain likes to get in the way." More than anything, this verse stands as a reminder in my life that it is always necessary to be teachable. I don't always want or think that I need the lesson that's put in front of me, but I know that in it all, it is God fulfilling His promise from scripture to continually teach me--to grow closer to Him, serve Him, and bring others closer to Him.

So my prayer today, as it is many days, is this:

Lord, thank you for the people that you put in my path. I'm sorry for not taking the time to always love those that You have created in Your image, and ask that today you continue to soften my heart and continue to bring those people that you have tasked (whether they know it or not) to bring me closer to You and to be a better servant of You. Amen.