helping others

The woman who cuts my hair phoned me in tears the other night. I was her first appointment the next morning and her request was could I pick her up and bring her to the salon in the morning. That afternoon her car had been repossessed. When I picked her up the next morning, she was sobbing and said her lights had been turned off the night before. 

No matter what country we live in we are aware of the people who live on the margins of our societies---people who provide our everyday services and barely manage to hang on---barely manage to pay their bills---barely manage to not be among the homeless. They are often the statistics we read about in the newspapers or watch on the evening news. Until they ride in our cars and we hear their sobs, their desperation,  they are just that---on our margins. They don't have names. 

I would guess my beautician has mild mental health issues and has struggled for many years. Her crisis has been magnified by some of her government benefits being cut---our incredibly broken politics. But she works seven days a week and attempts to be independent.

How are we supposed to help? Some would say these marginalized people are lazy---they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Do people who say that ever really hear the stories and the pain?

Those of us in recovery know many people who are living on the margins. 

Scripture tells us the beggar at the gate "would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table."

We have a responsibility to the needy. We have a covenant that binds us together.

Can you respond today?---in some way.

Blessings-Penny