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Monday, December 6, 2010
"Seeing Past What It Seems"
Every once in awhile I read something that just needs to be shared. This is one of those posts. Thank you to Amy Ables Lawson for speaking to my core today.
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2 comments:
I just love when you post! And this one is incredibly powerful.
Wow.
I have two brothers with brain injury. One, a Vet from Vietnam; returned home a different person.
The other, a quick stop on a motorcycle, and skid, left part of his brain on Highway 41 in Florida.
My sister-in-law told me there is a support group for these folks at www.tbi.org or Google TBI.org, for traumatic brain injury.
(It has advice for Caretakers and Victims).
But then, I continued reading, and saw this was far more than brain injury.
This is a story of traumatic HEART injury. And the injury is complicated by an evil culture that refuses to value human beings.
I have worn those signs of divorce, single parenting (NOTHING out there for single parent dads, folks), attorney took the home for fees, lost job since sales and marketing and travel do not coexist with raising two young girls.
Then, mom died.
Dad left 24 years ago, so an orphan I became. My own siblings do not understand the effect that had and were quick to say: "Get over it", but I remain the only one to visit the gravesite 3 or 4 times a week still.
Why?
I find peace there.
A homeless man asked me for a dollar, and he had a cast on his wrist. I asked what he wanted it for. He replied "to pay his medical bills".
I said a dollar will hardly have any effect on that.
He said: "Every dollar, helps it go down".
I could not argue with that logic, and gave him a dollar.
His smile at the reward for being recognised as a worthwhile person was worth ten million dollars!
I drove down the street watching him, and the smile was on his face for blocks. He was no fraud.
This was in Pennsylvania, and a few years later, I wrote the story on a blog called Walking in The Spirit, by Amy (then, in Phoenix).
A woman wrote a comment that she was his sister, his name was Vincent (as I wrote too) and she lived 90 miles from me. Her family was desperate to find him to no avail. Vincent died in Phoenix.
The sister, nearby in Buffalo, created a memorial site online, and posted the blog, my comment, and several emails we exchanged as I told her of her brother in his last year of life. He was a young man.
Vincent had a cast on his wrist to be recognised as valuable. Without it, though his medical need was genuine, folks would walk away, assuming alcohol was the next purchase. I found he most enjoyed conversation.
And now, I get to be Vincent.
Not because of homelessness, but by deafness, a new malady in life for me. I must learn the culture, and folks who hear can not "see" my handicap. There is no sign that says "I can't hear you".
We are in the darkest time of year now. But for all people with injured hearts and unmet needs, the entire year is dark.
They need light or they wander aimlessly, injured deeply.
We are preparing for Jesus to come and be with us; Emmanuel; Christmas; birth of a Savior.
Light of the World at the darkest time. The Book of Matthew opens early with Emmanuel.
But at the end of Matthew, he gives what Protestants call the Great Commission, sending disciples to all the world. He ends that book as He began.
"God With Us" starts Matthew, and Jesus at the last sentence of Matthew says:
" And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
God is with us at the beginning; God is with us always...to the very end.
To those of you, like me, who have no signs to wear on the outside as in that beautiful post,..... let God be with you, and speak for you....always.
He will.
Merry Christmas Shanda, and all who drink deeply at this well of wisdom.
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