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Health & Fitness

Deep Thoughts on PB & J

Making lunches.  We do it everyday for ourselves, perhaps for our kids and even our spouses (if we're over-zealous enough).  It's become an auto pilot activity of sorts.  I never think, "Hmmmm, will there be lunch today?"  It's just a given.  And if there isn't exactly what I am fancying in our pantry, or if I am feeling on the lazy side then we pop out to one of the many restaurants that suits our current taste bud craving.  On some days I even have the option of making a smoothie with our high tech blender if I am feeling a bit indulgent from over-doing it on the weekend.  The luxury of all these choices came to life when our Little Helping Hands group decided to serve at Lazarus House, a homeless shelter in St. Charles.

This particular homeless shelter helps feed, sleep and clothe many of the people in the community that are in need of an oasis.  The staff said they were in desperate need of forks, okay, easy enough.  And if we felt up to it 20 lunches. Each parent had the responsibility to explain homelessness to our children before we endeavored on our mission.  Puzzled looks ensued upon their faces when they realized not everyone has lunch magically appear to them at noon, nor might they have a bed to sleep in if there is no room at the shelter.  The innocence of the suggested strategies that flowed from their hearts to help meet these homeless people's basic life needs were so simple, unhindered and generous - dare I even say a bit socialist!  As an adult I wish it could be that simple.  After working at Breakthrough Urban Ministries, in my former life before kids, I know that it is so much more complicated then what their innocence perceives.  I think they have the right idea though.  We grown-ups may dwell too much on the details to the point of feeling overwhelmed and thus paralyzed in our actions.  The kids on the other hand said we had to start somewhere, so making PB J's is where we began.  

The LHH group gathered together, set up an assembly line and with fervor packed brown paper lunch bags to the brim with sandwiches, homemade cookies, water, pretzels, etc., It was fun and so very easy to do.  They even made themselves lunch.  Which by the way, now that I know what they are capable of my job just got a lot easier!  This particular time I took much more notice at how much food they absent-mindedly left on their plates which sheepishly led my eyes to the lunch bags that we just packed sitting on the floor.  I guarantee that whomever was going to receive those sack lunches would not need their crusts cut off, nor would care about the flavor of yogurt, nor be upset because it wasn't peanut butter plain without jelly, nor blink an eye at whether they had pretzels or chips in their bag.  It would all be gobbled up because they were hungry and simply because there were no other options.  

Recently, all my siblings, spouses and parents went out to dinner.  One of the topics discussed was where we were all going to gather for spring break next year. There were many strong opinions and once again there were many options afforded to us.  Fast forward to this week.  I stepped into Lazarus House yesterday and glanced around at the stuffiness, the one air unit working fiercely to try to keep out the stifling humidity.  I walked my children into the main room where there stood a tiny kitchen, an even smaller eating space and rows upon rows of packed bunk beds so close together that I am sure you could smell the strangers bed breath next to you.  It was all located in the same room.  I then flashed back to our spring break conversation and felt ashamed at the absurdity of our choices that we have everyday in comparison to many others reality in this world.

There is a fine balance between feeling guilty or feeling grateful for all of the high end, somewhat surface choices that I daily encounter.  I love it and I hate it at the same time.  I would love to embrace it if everyone had the same opportunities as me.  Since that is not the case, much of my world is filled with traces of guilt and shame.  I don't deserve the 'riches' I have any more than anyone else so why am I the 'blessed' one?  Yet, there is an undeniable truth of the brokenness and imbalance in the world in which we live.  Does condemnation and guilt come from God?  No.  It is my own demon to wrestle within myself. From the beginning of time there have always been 'the poor', 'the rich' and everything in between.  Since I have been in pigtails my parents have instilled in me, "with much that has been given, much is expected".  That philosophy is what stirs in me a responsibility to not hate what I have, but to share it selflessly and graciously with others.  I don't do so in order to receive a 'get out of jail free' card from the guilt that inevitably will forever arise in me.  Instead, I do so out of a righteous responsibility to take care of one another.  
  
My husband unexpectedly and unjustly got fired from his job last year.  He is the only income earner coupled with the fact that we were already living under a heavy cloud of debt.  I have never 'wanted' for anything in my life and have been given great privileges.  The day he got fired changed up my so called status in life quite a bit.  When he lost his job we had no other choice but to file bankruptcy.  With three kids under the age of 6 to feed, bills that didn't stop just because his job did, everything that I knew in life was flipped on it's head.  We found ourselves on food stamps and medicaid to meet our immediate needs.  The first grocery outing where I had to use my LINC (food stamp) card, I stood tall and proud when I handed it to the cashier all the while carefully observing her facial expressions and/or judgments toward me.  My prideful personae in the store quickly turned into a puddle of tears afterward in the safety of my car.  How did this happen to us?!  I felt humiliated, small and 'less than'.  I let 'it' define who I was for a moment in time.  Being on food stamps was not a result of us being lazy or irresponsible but sadly enough I feared it would look like that to others.  To be completely candid, I realized that if I feared those critiques of others it most likely is because somewhere along the way I too have had those same thoughts/judgments about others.  I wanted to scream and prove to the peering, wondering eyes that we were in this place because of immature investment decisions mixed together with an individual's mental illness and vindictiveness which directly led to my husband's job loss.  Every time I handed over that blue card I wanted to share my story to prove my worth beyond what that card may have indicated.  

After many months of painful self-discovery, I came to the epiphany that we are ALL worthy beyond what we have or don't have.  We simply have worth because we are human, because we were created by the ultimate Creator, by a God who gave us Jesus whose holy power lives within us.  We all deserve the same opportunities, but that is not how the story unfolds for many because of all of our complex reasons.  We are born into different circumstances, with different people, inherit some things and also create some things with our choices that affect our outcomes in vastly different realms.  

Yes, we ended up on food stamps and medicaid, but I would be lying to say that we suffered.  My parents took over all of our other payments and gave us plenty extra to keep our kids in all of their same activities, treated us to many nice dinners, and bought us most anything that we not only needed, but wanted.  I don't say this to brag, rather I say this to confess that we were not affected so much physically, but emotionally.  Where would we have been had we not had that safety net and network of generosity and love beyond measure?  We would have been that very family at Lazarus House who humbly and gratefully receives those lunch bags we packed up the other day. 

Giving softens our hearts, it breaks down the barriers between the 'haves' and the 'have note's', it transforms our soul to realize that we are all connected to one another and in essence responsible to watch over each other .  Just as my parents and many others rose to the occasion in our 'down' time, we are finally in a stable enough place to do the same for others.  If we didn't hand back that gift that was undeservedly handed to us, then who would we have become? We would have become not much more than empty hoarders if we had squandered all of that love and generosity for ourselves only.  We lost our income and our pride in the process.  I pray, now that our income has returned, we will still stand firm in a place of remembrance.  I choose to move forward and keep stepping into every moment of each day with my eyes wide open to look for opportunities to hold a hand, to be an ear of compassion, and of course to offer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to anyone that is hungry.  Living this way is a gift to me, to my children and to the generations that follow, even more so then it is to them.

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