I was praying last night about where my life was supposed to go - What am I supposed to do God? What is Your will for me? And God answered me, be compassionate. This scared me, but I'm going to try like hell. Thinking about this prayer I started thinking about a story, as I so often do. I have shared this story before and I can only hope that by sharing it again and again, I can bring about this change in myself. The title of this story is:
She is Your hands and feet
“Hello.” When my Grandma says hello, it sounds a lot more like yellow, except the end of the word is curved into this curious sort of hospitality. I had called Grandma that day because I needed her to retell a story, I'd heard it before, but pieces of it had disappeared, and I needed to get it back. See, I think of myself as a storyteller, and I needed this one of hers.
“Grandma?”
“Yeah.” She replied, having no idea which of her thirty-something grandchildren it could be.
“It's me, Joe, I was hoping you could tell me that story about seeing Jesus on your wall.”
She of course told me she would, but we had to have a 'what are you doing with your life' conversation first. I don't really like that question, or line of questioning, as I don't think I have ever known a good answer. Anyway, after telling her the better parts of my kind-a-sorta plan on what I was going to do with my life, she said she'd tell me the story.
“We were living in Norfolk, Nebraska, and I had just had your Uncle Jim, I had come home from the hospital, no, no wait... it was Rick. Anyway, this house we were living in had one bedroom in it, and a sort of an attic, wasn't 5 feet high. Anyway Jack and I managed to get a couple of cribs up there, we had four babies in the house now. We used the bedroom on the main floor for the new baby. So me and Jack had nowhere to sleep. There was a new basement, it was clean, but unfinished, so we put our double bed there. We put a chair and a lamp so Jack could read. Anyhow I would lay down, and he would read a book and drink a beer - whatever the hell he did. He had some books from college, some catechises kind of stuff. I remember Jack once said, my God, this is getting ridiculous we are living in the basement with the fungus and our babies have bedrooms.
“Anyway, I had just come home from the hospital and I had fell asleep, I was like a rag. I weighed 180 lbs and dropped down to 145 after I had Rick. Jack woke me up and said, I want you to get up slowly. I thought he was drunk. (My Grandpa was an alcoholic) I sat up real slow, and told Jack I was tired and didn't want any damn monkey business. He insisted, so I got out of bed.
“When Jack was dying, I remember I asked him, Jack do you remember when God showed himself to us in Norfolk? Your Grandpa didn't want to talk about it, he was afraid he hadn't lived up to God's expectations.
“That image of Christ, it has strengthened my faith all the days of my life, Some people think I'm silly or stupid. But I pray for you all everyday. You only have God, 3 to 4 good friends, and your family in your whole life, and that's it.”
I was quiet for a moment. Grandma had filled in all the pieces of that story that had disappeared. The conversation turned to prayer, and who in the family needed prayers. I'm sure it turned other directions as well, but when the story came to an end, it hung over me - it distracted me. I told my Grandma she was an amazing woman and hung up the phone.
"Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion
is to look out to the earth,
yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now."
-St Teresa of Avila
I'm reading your blog, and like it.
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