Post #4: Just A Thought
There’s this lady who lives in my town who stands by the exit of my local grocery store parking lot holding up a sign that says she needs help.
The sign is kind of long, and it offers up some key details about this lady’s situation. It says she’s a single mom, and she can’t work — but it doesn’t say why she can’t work, but I suppose she’d need an even longer sign to explain that part. The rest of the writing on the sign is just asking for any help, and then it ends with a, “Bless You.”
Today, I had to go to that little grocery store because it has this water dispenser in the back that I like to use to refill my gallon jugs of drinking water. We live in a tiny cottage in an organic vineyard, and the well water that comes out of our tap is pretty hard and tastes a little like metal. So for the past year or so, Lou and I have been schlepping the same four empty gallon water jugs to the market to get a refill of water. It saves us so much money over buying new containers of water each week — and right now, every penny still counts.
On my way out of the parking lot, I saw the woman standing there with her sign and few shopping bags by her feet. As I rolled up a little closer, she held up her sign for me to read, but also to prompt me to search my heart (and my wallet) to help her out. I didn’t have any money handy to give her as the driver behind me rolled up on me and tapped his horn to get me to move. So I turned my eyes to look for any oncoming traffic, and then I made my turn to head back home. But the whole drive home, I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman.
She triggered me.
As I’ve said before, I really want to lead with empathy when I encounter things that I don’t understand. But the truth is, I actually do understand what it’s like to be down so low that the idea of begging for money has crossed my mind. And in many ways, I probably had my own version of a street-corner plea going on in my life, too. I didn’t actually stand outside the supermarket with a sign and a tin cup in my hand, but in my heart, there was a poverty mindset brewing in me at times that made me wish someone would come along and fix my problems with a wad of money that I didn’t earn.
I wish I did know what is really happening in this lady’s life. I wonder why she can’t work… Is she injured, or perhaps she’s an immigrant without the right kind of work visa? I really can’t tell anything just by looking at her or by reading her sign. So all I can do is wonder and imagine how complicated her backstory must be…
So far in my lifetime, I’ve never heard anyone say that their life long dream is to be a panhandling single parent someday.
I can’t imagine anyone wanting that future for themselves, and I’m sure if this lady really is a single mom, she must want her children to grow up with more options than she seems to have. Yet something in her circumstances has led her to believe that asking for money from strangers in a busy parking lot is the answer for her — at least, for now.
I wish I had given that lady a little change — and the next time I see her, I probably will. I won’t lie and say that I agree with what she’s doing because I do want to believe there has to be some other way for her to keep herself afloat. But how in the world could I possibly know exactly what it’s like to be her? I’ve lived seasons of my life where if someone didn’t give me shelter and a leg up, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me…
All I know is this: That lady and her sign made me think about her… And perhaps on some level, everyone I encounter in this life is a “person in need.”
