Over the past week we’ve been caring for one of our teenage
moms who delivered this past month. She’s
young and the condition we’ve been seeing her daily for is heartbreaking. Today as I waited in the quiet clinic for her
to show up I became discouraged. The time we’d agreed for her to
come came and went. She didn’t show. I
was frustrated. Frustration turned to a little anger. Doesn’t she know we’re trying
to help her? Why can’t she just show up here?! She can’t do anything else until
she heals…she can’t possibly be too busy!
My frustration and little bit of anger melted into sadness
as I thought about the injustice and effects of poverty. It has been life-long
for her. She wasn’t a middle class citizen
who one day had a date with misfortune. No, she was born into poverty and that’s
all she knows. It’s a culture within a culture and one I really know little
of. Perhaps she doesn’t know how to tell
time. Maybe she does, but even then she
likely doesn’t have a clock hanging in her house. She probably has a phone, but
she likely has no power source in her house and the sporadic electricity in the
area lately may have left it uncharged. She doesn’t live far, but walking the distance
from her house to the MC would be terribly painful with her condition. Perhaps
she doesn’t have the Haitian Gourde equivalent of $0.13USD to climb into a
crowded taptap that could bring her the short distance. It could be she just really doesn’t want to come, but even a lifetime of
poverty plays into that scenario. Could
it be, regardless of how much we’ve told her, the importance of daily care just
doesn’t make sense in her mind? After all, she does feel much better than the first day we treated her. Surely that
means she doesn’t still need care every
day.
My melting frustration and anger turned me into a puddle of
tears…for the sadness of this reality that is all around me, for my initial
response of frustration and lack of grace.
And I wonder how many times my frustration, anger and lack of grace have
been because of my inability to see and understand? Lack of grace can only be a
fault on my part. Only I am responsible for opening my eyes to see the world
around me for what it is and not what I think it should be. Only I am
responsible for my response, be it one of grace or the lack thereof.
May we have eyes to see, hearts to understand, and responses of grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment