Earlier in the semester, I couldn’t seem to get my Friday schedule straightened out. Two weeks in a row, I was late meeting the college students I minister with at the Urban Mission’s pantry and thrift store – and the second week I had promised the student leader up and down that I’d be there, waiting for them (clearly contrary to Jesus’ injunction to let one’s “yes” be “yes”). But the time for ministry on Fridays is an hour earlier than the other “student days,” so at 1:07 PM I found myself hurriedly leaving my long-suffering student leader a voicemail and grabbing the car keys as I remembered I was to have met the group at 1:00, not 2:00.
Arriving at the pantry, the National Guard soldiers informed me the students had come and gone and I could find them at the thrift store. I was getting ready to do that when a young woman, with a double stroller filled with two little boys with curly hair spilling over, came for groceries. It didn’t look like the bags would fit securely on the stroller, so I asked if I could help her carry the bags home. After a bit of hesitation, she accepted my offer and we headed off. “Well”, I thought, “at least something good has come of my tardiness!”
While we walked, we talked, and I learned that this woman had known our sisters from the store. She also shared she was looking for a way to fulfill some community service hours but had nobody to take care of her boys as she worked, so she was struggling to find a place to volunteer. I was sad and angry while listening to her as she shared about her situation: raising four kids alone, she was trying to make restitution as asked by the court but she was unable. If she were working or going to school, there were agencies available for childcare. But for community service hours, nothing seemed to be available, and now the thought of going to jail and losing her kids to foster care was added to this woman’s worries and burdens.
I felt very helpless, but assured this brave young woman that everything would work out in the end and God’s perspective is bigger. Though I believe this with all my heart, it was very hard to say it aloud to someone in such straits.
Since several kids were all-but-raised at the Samaritan House as their parents volunteered, I mentioned to her that it might be a possibility for her to work with us at the Urban Thrift store and bring the boys, though I was careful to let her know I didn’t have any authority in the matter. After leaving her groceries at her home, we walked to the thrift store, where God had arranged that the volunteer coordinator would be working the register, ready to greet us! An initial plan was proposed and I could just see hope and strength fill this woman’s very body as she realized she wasn’t totally helpless.
Heading over to where the students were working in order to make my apologies for tardiness, I was filled with gratitude that I had been late that day. Why should I be downhearted? God uses my mistakes.
*Photo is a still shot from By His Poverty We Have Become Rich video.
-Sr. Agnes Therese Davis, T.O.R.
