God Offers Us a Blessing

I like the very old and the very young. The in-between are harder sometimes for me to deal with. I walked to my volunteer work at the nursing home yesterday and was thinking about how much I enjoy working with the elderly. My other volunteer work is as a pro-life  sidewalk counselor at an abortion mill. There, my focus is on the unborn. I had never really considered that my heart for ministry is with both the very youngest and the very oldest of humanity.

I didn't think I would be able to do my art class at the nursing home this week. Since the roads were still icy after the wallop of a snowstorm we'd had here in Charlotte, I walked there. It was already warming up, but the sidewalks were difficult to navigate. They were still snow-covered and icy with treacherous valleys and mounds, churned by the other passersby. It was a little tricky, but I made it.

I was glad I had made the effort. I had a full class. We drew a Cupid for Valentine's Day. One of my class members was over 90! It was her first time in the art class, and she drew a very passable Cupid. When it was time for me to go, I was packing up to leave and the sweet eldest member told me she had surely enjoyed the class and thanked me for coming. She told me to be careful walking home, and was grateful that I had walked so far in the snow just to teach her how to draw a Cupid.
"No one will care that I drew a Cupid, but I had fun," she told me.
"I bet if you give it to a grandchild and tell him you drew it, he will cherish it," I said.
"Maybe so," she said, gracing me with a lovely, sincere smile.

I trudged home over the now melting sidewalk ice feeling warmed in heart, and useful. I never seem to struggle to relate to the elderly. I love how they are grateful for company, (any company...even mine! ) and are comfortable sitting quietly. They don't really care if their artwork turns out or not. They have nothing to prove anymore. I always feel appreciated in the company of the elderly.

It was just what I needed. Appreciation and acceptance. It is really what we all need, but so many of us are stingy in doling it out. It took me many years to understand that when I try to meet the needs of those who are weak and most need love, I am strengthened, and I feel loved. No wonder God keeps urging us to care for those least able to care for themselves. He is offering us a blessing.

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Psalm 82:4
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
 deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

From Charles Spurgeon:
"Lord, help me to glorify thee; I am poor; help me to glorify thee by
contentment; I am sick; help me to give thee honour by patience; I have
talents; help me to extol thee by spending them for thee; I have time; Lord,
help me to redeem it, that I may serve thee; I have a heart to feel; Lord, let
that heart feel no love but thine, and glow with no flame but affection for
thee; I have a head to think; Lord, help me to think of thee and for thee;
thou hast put me in this world for something; Lord, show me what that is, and
help me to work out my life-purpose: I cannot do much; but as the widow put in
her two mites, which were all her living, so, Lord, I cast my time and
eternity too into thy treasury; I am all thine; take me, and enable me to
glorify thee now, in all that I say, in all that I do, and with all that I
have."