dichotomies

It's been an interesting week. I experienced two totally different ends of the spectrum on Wednesday. In the morning, I worked in the local service center kitchen fixing meals for the homeless. It was our church's day for volunteering so I went to help. It was fun. I met new people, did a good thing, and filled a need. I liked it. We fixed green salad, fruit salad, and helped put together the dinners to hand out.

When we finished, the head cook asked us if we wanted a plate lunch. I hesitated. We all did. It wasn't the meal. It was a perfectly fine meal, but I started to politely refuse. The lady asked again. No one said anything. Then one person said he would, so I accepted too. Some had perfectly good reasons for not accepting. They had previous plans for lunch, or they had to leave early, but I couldn't think of my good reason. Why had I hesitated? I was hungry. Was I just feeling timid? Shy? Most would say a resounding, "You? Shy?"

At first, I wondered if it was usual for the volunteers to eat, or was I taking food from someone who needed it more than I did? But, to be bluntly honest, I think there may have been a seed of pride. Nothing bold or 'in your face' prideful. I certainly didn't feel as though I were too good to eat there, but I felt humbled as I sat and ate my lunch. Would the simple act of eating a meal have humbled me had there not been pride there? As I ate, I wondered how the people outside eating their lunch felt knowing it was perhaps their only meal of the day. I knew that this afternoon I would go home and fix supper for my family.

Later that evening I kept my appointment at the nail salon. I went from feeling humbled by a meal at a service center for the needy, to feeling humbled by a young woman giving me a pedicure; from sitting on a stool eating some beef stew casserole in a kitchen, to sitting on a "throne" with someone washing my feet.

I've had many pedicures in the past and each one reminds me of the foot washing services we had in church many years ago. Even then I'd rather wash feet than have my feet washed. Remember Peter's reaction when Jesus sat down to wash his feet? On this day, I felt particularly unworthy of this special attention even though it was a service for which I was paying. Each experience, the lunch and the pedicure, was at a separate end of the spectrum of life, and each one was humbling in its own way.

I find it easier for me to take charge. It's easier--less emotional--to be the one giving. To be the magnanimous one, the gift giver, the strong one. When I 'gave' my labor at the service center, I was the strong one, giving help--but when I ate, I needed nourishment just like those outside the center eating. I was humbled. When I was getting my pedicure, even though I was paying, she was the strong one. I was receiving care, so in essence, I was the weak one.

2Cor 12:9,10 says, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. The Lord says when we are weak, then we become strong."

I need to be humbled; to feel the limits of my strength. I need to be aware of my need for the one stronger than I. Thank you, Lord that my strength lies not in my humanity, but in you.

I love you all.
Suzanne