Samantha and the Samaritan

What is your mission?

About six months ago an elderly neighbour of ours started losing his keys. He lives on his own. Another pensioner living in our area – a friend of his – committed herself to visiting him regularly. It seems he’s always managed on his own and liked things done a certain way. He didn’t easily accept help, and he can’t hear very well. His friend – let’s call her Samantha – persisted in regularly checking on him.

A few days ago she was outside calling for him as he wasn’t answering the door. It turns out he had had a stroke and fallen. An ambulance came and took him away.

I shudder to think what could have happened had Samantha not been regularly checking on him. As it is, no-one knows how long he had been lying there, but had it not been for Samantha, it could have been much longer.

It’s people like her that make things so much better. They’re not famous, they don’t have a big social media following, they don’t give stirring speeches. They’re simply flexible if they see someone in need, and whether it’s appreciated or not, they’ll commit to meeting that need.

I don’t know what my mission is. When I was much younger, I had ambitions to achieve great things – be a gifted Bible teacher, write for famous websites, teach many about Jesus. These are good things. For me they had the outward appearance of nobility, but they were largely about myself.

Now I’m trying harder to follow the one who told a story about an unlikely helper: someone who deviated from his own plan to feed and care for someone else. He stopped and bandaged his wounds when church people were too busy and “holy” to do so. Jesus told us to go and be like that helper.

Right now my family need my attention, but in general I want to be ready. I want to be more like Samantha.

#bloganuary