With a bus trip between routes today, I haven’t been home too awfully long. As You know, Father, I was productive while away, but now is the time for us to come together. Please open my eyes to see what is before me this evening.
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This has been weighing on my heart and mind recently. I regularly pick up a middle school student toward the end of my route. There are students in almost every seat, most sitting alone. They are new residents of the house where I stop, but I don’t know if they’ve been a part of our district for a while or not. What has been weighing on me is the look on the student’s face when they get on and find an empty seat. Their expression is one of loneliness—the look of one looking upon the inside from the outside.
To my knowledge, they have no friends on the bus, though I see them coming out of the school in the afternoons accompanied by others – they ride another bus to their grandparents’ home, I think.
There’s another event that ties into this one. Last weekend, our family went to a Christmas Bazaar at a large church in a neighboring community. Many vendors were selling their wares, and you could tell that many of them had invested a substantial amount of time, effort, and resources into their creations.
The ones that got to me were the ones whose wares were a little subpar. They weren’t awful, but the quality of what they were selling just wasn’t getting people’s attention. …the looks on many of their faces was heart-wrenching, at least to those who were looking…
Are you looking? Do you see the lonely and the lost? Do you see the faces of those on the outside pressed up against the glass, trying to get just a glimpse of those enjoying the warmth and camaraderie of those on the inside?
I am as interactive with my student as I can be, as they get on and off the bus. But that is my only contact. I call them by name every single time, hoping that that communicates their importance, to me at least.
Maybe I should have at least stopped and chatted with the downhearted vendors. It probably wouldn’t have hurt to buy some small thing from them, but…I didn’t…
The Apostle John wrote in his first epistle (letter),
Little children (believers, dear ones), let us not love [merely in theory] with word or with tongue [giving lip service to compassion], but in action and in truth [in practice and in sincerity, because practical acts of love are more than words]. 1 John 3:17-18 AMP
Saying we care about people and love them is not enough. We must take action […because practical acts of love are more than words].
May we strive to see the world through the eyes of Christ. Our powers of perception are too narrow and limiting. Only the love of Christ, in action through us, can truly make a difference in the lives of others.
Nov 16th, 2023, Thurs, 6:23 pm
