faith unfaded

I told someone that once, the rumor mill in overdrive creating great mental havoc on their mind. I’d been there. Being the talk of the town is quite different than being the toast of the town.

But people move on. The rubbernecking your trainwreck caused becomes old news as a new salacious scandal tops the charts.

Your story becomes old news, yesterday’s newspaper in the days of print journalism, and it lines the cages for pets to poop.

You just toss out the old….

Problem is, we aren’t just tossing out old news. We’re tossing out people as well. Nursing homes are filled with patients whose families can’t be bothered. Caregivers work in isolation as no one else steps up. Or, as in the situation currently weighing on my heart, a loved one with dementia is removed from his home and everything he owned, including pets, and sent across the country without even a phone. Out of sight, out of mind. A lifetime of service to others, once he was of no use to those he once served, he was callously discarded.

What does this say about one’s heart though? We know how God sees those who help those who can’t help themselves:

“God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” Hebrews 6:10

How does he see those who turn their backs on aging parents? Former friends? Widows? Orphans?

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

Does that mean we are impure and with fault when we decide we’ve done all we can do to help? When our mental state says that’s enough? When does God let us out of the contract to care for our loved ones who can no longer care for themselves?

“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” James 2:15-16

The heart in me breaks for those who suffer. It’s a spiritual empathy that is often overwhelming. I want to fix it for everyone, whether it’s the mom crying over a critically ill child’s beside or someone struggling with addiction or an Alzheimer’s patient wishing for the end. I can’t fix any of it. But I can hit my knees and pray to the One who can.

And if there’s something tangible I can do, you better believe I’m going to do it.

Because people matter. They aren’t to be thrown away when they get a little tarnished. I’ve been discarded by many in my lifetime. I’ve had the very people I did the most for turn and rend me.

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Matthew 7:6

Unfortunately you don’t realize who the swine are sometimes until they’ve trampled you.

But you can make sure you aren’t one of the ones in the muck.