During my examen today, I thought about a consolation moment from today and this scripture quote came to me from this weekend’s gospel which was read at our staff meeting.
“For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.” — Luke 13:30
I was discussing this at a staff meeting and a story from Nicaragua came flooding back to me. I’ve blogged it before but it’s worth re-telling.
I was asked to “monitor lunch” for the children at the orphanage. In fact, one child was given to me as my responsibility: Maria Delores, a child with cerebral palsy. Maria Delores had a bad right hand, clawed, for lack of a better term. The staff was giving her serious physical therapy, hoping that they could rehabilitate the hand for at least partial use.
So I was told that I needed to get her to eat with that same hand. But Maria Delores was stubborn. Or so I thought.
A staff member saw that Maria Delores wouldn’t eat for me. But then she helped me understand why she wouldn’t eat.
There was no plate for me.
And when the staff member returned with a plate for me, Maria Delores took her clawed hand and shared her chicken and rice with me.
That week, we all helped to feed Maria Delores and the other orphans. We brought lots of resources and dollars to the organization. But I think I got the most sustaining meal of all—a meal that Maria Delores was fed by for ages.
Poor people often teach us much more than we offer to them. And while we’ve fed a lot of orphans, the stories that we come back home with, often provides spiritual food that continues to feed many others.
Can you be open enough to allow your heart and mind to be touched by someone that you were sent to help? Could you be humble enough to consider that there may indeed be something that might be calling you?
In any event, it is often the tiny morsel that gives the most feeding…a kind word…a small expression….a poor child in Nicaragua.
Indeed all are gift and so I wait, for God to come again…and show me more.