The simple things I take for granted are missing for some. I can read. I have enough to eat and a safe place to live. Any number of people encouraged me to believe that I could do whatever I wanted. My husband doesn’t beat me, and we can help our kids go to college.
What would it be like, God, to be like the troubled stranger I passed on the street this morning? What would it be like to live with violence? To work really hard and barely make it? To be the object of scorn because of the color of my skin?
You told our forebears in faith, again and again, to protect those who are left out, on the margins. Long ago that meant widows and orphans and sojourners. Today, there are so many on the margins.
Sometimes we can be so busy getting to our destination that we walk right by those who might need us the most. Help us to be bold in our love. Help us to see and respond.
This message was adapted from “To See and Respond” by Catherine Malotky that appeared in the September 2005 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.