Stop, breathe, take a moment. These are words that run through my head sometimes several times per day depending on how frenetic I am feeling. I have had the privilege the last few days to spend a lot of time in the hospital and medical clinics where I work. They are there everyday but the arena in which I work does not have me in the thick of it all day after day. It definitely gave me an even greater respect for the doctors and nurses and support staff who work with all these sick people day in and day out. I am not sure if it is being a sensitive soul but it was hard to look at the faces of all the people suffering. The energy was palpable and overwhelming at times. At the end of the day I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out. I was not in a position to help these people. What I do assists those who do help them directly, but I was helpless to help those who were in pain. That is a defeating feeling. So I asked God, what can I do so that I don’t spend another day of my life feeling helpless to those faces that seem to cry out “soothe me.” Then it struck me as I was walking through the hospital the next day. “Smile Colleen.” Of course, my mind simply rebuffed, “Smile? What good is that going to do, they are not smiling.” Then I remembered, it wasn’t about what they were doing, it was about what I could give. So I began to smile at all the people who I passed, there were even a few that smiled back. When I began to give what I could, I was no longer drained by my experience. I was able to soothe others by being who I could best be in that situation. I don’t know if it made a difference for them, but it reminded of the simple ways that we can be a light and shine God’s presence in the most unassuming ways. My prayer for you today is that you find a way to bring what gifts you have to soothe someone else. Do it whether or not they will receive it. As Mother Theresa said, “do it anyway.”:
“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” – from Mother Teresa’s wall
Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen
dailydatewithgod 
I love this Colleen. The smiles we give send out our loving energy! Thank you for your inspiration. Thank you for sharing Mother Teresa’s words….do it anyway.
Smiles=loving energy, I like that. 😉
I can really relate to your experience Colleen. The question “How can I serve in this situation?” often comes to mind, especially when I’m in a new environment. ‘Being’ is often the answer – I secretly suspect it may always be the answer. I stop short of writing ‘just being’ because it diminishes that glorious state, and makes it seem as if ‘being’ is a lesser thing than any other alternative. I think there may be no higher action or decision. Of course as a human being I often feel like I ‘need’ something more tangible to focus on. Therefore, a new question arises – how to ‘be’?
Should I be loving, empathetic, caring? What I’ve discovered for myself is that I cannot generate these spiritual resources from within myself. In other words, I am not a producer of things like Love, Empathy, Encouragement, Understanding, Patience, etc….and yes even Soothingness (A.K.A. serenity) Previously, I’ve thought that these spiritual resources were something that I had acquired somehow and they were holed up in a reservoir somewhere inside me. I carried them inside and dished them out as I saw fit from time to time. Doling them out much like I’ve often given Charity, usually in small measured quantities and always with a certain hesitation and maybe even a little regret (lol, it seems very tragic now that I think about it).
If I acquired them, then I was up against the difficult proposition that I needed others to acquire them from. I either had to earn these resources from others or maybe even cajole or manipulate them out of someone else to fill my coffers. “By hook or by crook” I felt I had to venture out and acquire these much needed life giving, life sustaining, spiritual resources that I needed to survive – in every sense of the word. That was a fruitless venture.
The other alternative is that I had to produce them within myself. I could grow them from scratch if I somehow ‘did something’ that made it possible to produce them. Maybe plant a seed by taking a certain action and watch these spiritual resources grow? Or would just willing them into existence do the trick? This raised a thousand other questions and built up a wall of hopelessness that I could ever successfully produce these resources and get my needs met. I discovered a hopelessness that sprung from having alternatives that I had no idea how to do.
Since then I’ve discovered a different alternative that satisfies. That is the alternative of being a channel. I found that I could channel (i.e. accept or receive) the spiritual resources that I needed from the source. Weather it came directly from the source itself or by way of others who also channeled it to me made no difference. The resource was the same and satisfied equally. And being a channel in turn made it so that it didn’t matter which way the spiritual resource flowed, receiving it was no different than sharing it. The only thing that matters is that it flows. It’s not a resource that I can somehow capture and store. But it’s not necessary to do so; it’s being shared with me at all times. And God – being all – can’t run out because he doesn’t know about can’t or limits. So now when I look at fulfilling the need I have for Love or Encouragement or Empathy, I can accept it from God and let it flow through me. It just matters that the bell rings(i.e. experiencing the spiritual resource) not from which direction it was struck. And so the undecipherable, monumental task of producing it myself goes away – it’s not necessary. And the over-dependence (co-dependence) on others to get my needs met also gets set aside for today. Others participate in the process with me, if they so choose to, but they hold no magic key or special power. Others cannot bar me from, nor do I need to give them the power over, receiving and channeling God’s Love today. Whew, what a relief – I always hoped there was a way. And this way makes it so that I always have the opportunity to acknowledge the source, the need for one, and that I don’t have to produce it or acquire it like some limited resource. God does the heavy lifting – If I let him. I get to just ‘be’ today.
All that probably only made sense to me and sorry for the long comment but it is where I am right now and I thought I’d share. Cheers!
Domingo, thanks for sharing your insights. I could not agree more. I often think of the St. Francis prayer and use the word instrument instead of channel because an instrument does not play itself. Just for today I will be an instrument for God. Have a beautiful day.