Excuses, excuses.

You will surely agree with me when I say that life gets too busy sometimes … or a lot of the time.  Some days it feels like we are always running from one thing to the next:  Get gas in the car, take the kids to school, go to work, stop at the store, make dinner, get kids to practice, attend the meeting at church, etc.  In our hurried frenzy, I am afraid that we often times forget about, well, we forget about the forgotten ones.

At the surgical center where I work, we offer transportation to patients who don’t have anyone to drive them to have eye surgery.  That really makes me sad.  Many of the elderly patients have no friends or family to take them to have their eyes fixed.  I wonder if anyone ever visits them.

I also have a friend around my age that has succumbed to early Alzheimer’s and is in a nursing home.  My friend Clara and I try to visit her when we can.  It’s not important to us if she knows who we are – we just feel it is important to visit her.  I wonder how many people actually visit her.

And this subject hits close to home for me personally.  It has been wonderful how Amanda has found some independence with living in her own apartment.  But, she is alone most afternoons.  I try to stop by almost every day when I can.  There are so many people who know Amanda, but hardly anyone takes the time to stop by and visit her.

I ran across these verses today about how Jesus was being questioned by the Pharisees about healing and taking care of people’s needs on the Sabbath.  Old Jewish law said that you had to rest on the Sabbath.

Matthew 12:9-12 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? “He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

I’ll bet those old Pharisees just wanted one day off each week and so they insisted on not serving needy people on the Sabbath.  It was too much work for them.  Excuses, excuses.

So how much are we all like those lazy Pharisees who are so busy with our own royal business to not take time to help the forgotten ones?  Isn’t lonely old Grandpa Jones, widow Bertha, or handicapped Liza more valuable than another trip to the store or fifteen minutes of a video game?  Oh –wait – we are also tired, too.  Right?  There are so many forgotten ones out there who are also tired – tired of being alone.   Tired of feeling like nobody cares.

With the holiday season upon us, I ask for all of you to not forget the forgotten.  Do you know how welcome a visit is to those alone?  Do you know how just fifteen minutes of time can show a person that someone cares?  Is there an aged relative or neighbor who would welcome a visit from you?  Do you know of a lonely somebody who is aching for someone to care?

How much more valuable is a person than a sheep!

just Laurel