A few years ago, my husband and I started volunteering for Meals on Wheels. He chauffeurs me along the route and completes the minimally required paperwork while I pop in and out of the car, giving away meals that I didn’t have to cook to people in need. I enjoy talking with the clients and petting random cats that loiter around doorsteps. It’s an easy breezy way to serve.
Recently, our route changed and I had new people to deliver to. While my husband waited in the car, I made my way through the maze of residences at a retirement home and hesitantly knocked on the first client’s door. I was exuberantly welcomed by an elderly lady who invited me inside. Almost instantly, she told me she loved me. I figured maybe she was confused and thought I was someone else. But she insisted she loved me.
I saw a picture of a cat on her wall and commented on it. Seeing how much I liked cats, she introduced me to hers with a grandmotherly warmth. We talked for a few minutes about how she was feeling. She asked me for a hug, and I left. Afterwards, I ran back to the car and excitedly told my husband how she loved me. “She was just like Jesus,” I said. “I didn’t even have to do anything. She just loved me.”
What struck me most about this wasn’t how rare it is to meet someone who exudes such love. Nor was it the reminder that invariably, when we help others, we get back more than we give. It wasn’t even that she’s a kindred cat lover, validating my theories that cat (and dog) people are the nicest people. While all of those things were in and of themselves significant, it was how much her kindness underscored the simplicity of our purpose — to love others as we wished to be loved, that most struck me.
The day before I met her, I was feeling angsty and existential about life. I questioned what I should be doing and lamented all I had not done. I longed for significance, thinking it would come from some new endeavor or challenge. Yet this elderly woman showed me the impact that we can have on others through the generosity of love. And, while intellectually I already knew this, it’s a different thing altogether to encounter it. She made me feel closer to God by reminding me of his extravagant and unconditional love. I went to offer physical sustenance to someone in need and was fed spiritually by the experience. God uses all of us to comfort, console, and share his compassion if we let him. She reminded me how much these mercies can transform lives – not necessarily because our circumstances change but because love changes us.
Maybe all of this also sounds too easy breezy. After all, some random elderly woman tells me she loves me when she doesn’t even know me and voila, I’m no longer going down an existential rabbit hole to nowhere. Yet, that’s what happened – that’s the power of love. Through her generosity I felt God’s love. She didn’t know how much I needed it, nor does she know how much hope her kindness gave me. It reminded me that while our universal purpose to love isn’t complicated, it’s certainly not insignificant.
There are so many people in our world who are suffering from loneliness, depression, feelings of unworthiness, and despair despite being deeply loved. It makes me wonder if they too need to be reminded not just how much they are loved but how much their love, compassion, and kindness impact those they encounter. There is comfort in being loved but sometimes it’s easy to forget the exponential power that our love has on others. The world desperately needs the love we have to give.
At our core we all want to make a difference; we want to do something that matters. The prescription so often written for this is financial success, prestige, beauty, fit bodies, and fabulous clothes. The world wants us to airbrush over the raw and the real because as priceless as love is it’s not a viable commodity. You can’t sell compassion the way you can a wrinkle cream or diet pill, despite it being way more transformative.
By worldly standards, it would be easy to think that this housebound woman has nothing notable to contribute; certainly nothing as powerful as she gave to me that day. Yet to love unconditionally like Jesus is the most significant thing any of us can do regardless of our age or attributes. If you find yourself hungry for meaning, remember the fullness of love that you bring into this world. It’s an easy breezy route to lasting satisfaction.
Hi all~ We are in the thick of Lent and maybe hungrier than ever for something we gave up or feeling empty from difficult situations in life. So maybe now is a good time to remember the feast that comes with the joy of Jesus’s resurrection. I love the simplicity of this elderly woman’s reminder that despite our varied occupations, backgrounds, ages, or other demographics, the sole purpose of our lives is to love God and our neighbor. The love you share changes lives. As we empty ourselves in service and sacrifice, may we also look for the love of God that surrounds us. May it keep you full on your hardest days. ~Love, Lara