I’ve barely made it to work, haven’t even unpacked my bag, and already I’m bombarded with different people as they come by with morning greetings, requests for visits, referrals, and concerns. My mind, busy with the things I already need to get done, is a mental checklist I adjust as I add new things in and rearrange priorities. And really, in this moment, I’m just trying to get my lunch into the fridge.
In the midst of all this, small arms wrap themselves tight around my waist and, distracted, I give a quick hug in return before trying to untangle myself from the child’s grip. It’s only when I’ve successfully peeled myself away that I notice the tears running streaks down the little face and the heartache in the big brown eyes.
How important is getting my lunch in the fridge really?
As a school chaplain, my primary job description is to love people, but often I fail to do this well. My school is a diverse one, a mix of First Nation Australian, Pasifika, West African, Hmong, and Anglo-Australian families. Despite being in my passport country, I often feel as though I have crossed oceans. I love learning about the different customs and ways of thinking, and there is so much I have to learn! Within this kaleidoscope of nationalities, there are also significant needs and complexities. While I help where I can, my main job is to ensure that everyone is seen and valued. For the hours that they are at school each day, each child knows that they are loved.
The little boy with his clinging arms and heavy tears has often taken it as his own special responsibility to teach me about the culture he is from. He’s a child spilling over with creativity and curiosity and rambunctious energy, who leads a little troop of boys in all sorts of school yard adventures. A child who scorns the city in which we live and calls land further north his home. This connection to the land, his land, is part of his identity and well-being. He belongs to it, just as it belongs to him. But he hasn’t been home for a long time and, right now, he is homesick, heartsick for it.
In my busyness, I missed all the signs of his grief, missed the plea for comfort. Now, as I sit on the floor with a sobbing child in my arms, I am overwhelmed by my own inadequacy. I’m only beginning to grasp the world this little boy is from and, in this moment, his heartache feels like a gulf between us. I can no more bridge the gap and enter in than I can heal his broken heart.
We sit for a long time, he and I. A coworker puts my lunch in the fridge for me and checks we are okay. The little head, now buried in my shoulder, nods, and she smiles, murmuring her thanks to me, “We need you here.”
Do you? I wonder. I am not enough. The thought prompts me to pray.
And God meets me in my need. No, you are not enough. It’s a gentle whisper, the Voice itself a balm for my soul. You are not enough. But I am.
The weight is not on me.
Sometimes (often), I carry the weight—as though it is my responsibility to solve the problems, to heal what is broken, to restore and make new. I try to take the place of God, and in those moments, I crumble under the impossibility of it. What a relief to know that there is someone who can rightly carry that load!
There is so much that I don’t know and cannot do. But all that is asked of me is that I love with the love that Christ has so generously lavished on me. He will take care of the rest.
I don’t understand everything this little boy in my arms is feeling, but I do know what it’s like to miss home. Doesn’t my own heart also yearn for the places I call home, and more than that, for my home in heaven?
I hold him a little tighter. “It’s hard to be away from the places we love, isn’t it? Will you tell me about your home?”
He mumbles something into my shoulder, and I have to ask him to repeat it. After a long pause, he lifts his head, gives me a half smile through the tears. “Can I draw it?”
What load are you carrying today?
One Response
This brought tears to my eyes. Thank you.