When we first started our ministry to seniors, I was under the impression that this was a ministry to seniors, but I have learned that this is really a ministry to families. Families everywhere are going through the horrible and excruciating process of trying to deal with the plight of their aging parents. It wouldn’t be so difficult if their loved ones weren’t fully immersed in the process of dying, but the reality is that they are, and the family members are dealing with this reality as best they can.

I was reminded of this yesterday after we completed the service at our second senior facility. As I greeted our seniors after the service, I came to a young woman who was there with her mother. Her eyes were filled with tears and her nose was reddened from crying. She reached out and took both my hands, “You really have no idea how much this service has meant to me,” she said, and her voice wavered with the emotion. “I am going to write you a letter to tell you all that has happened in my life and how this has affected my life. I want you to know how over these last six months it has all come full circle.”

I didn’t have the words to respond, but I was glad that she expressed her feelings to me because we rarely hear the impact of what we are doing. We work hard to prepare our service. We practice once a week, and every third Sunday, we come prepared with nine songs, prayers, readings, and a message, but beyond a few tears and the occasional “God moments,” we don’t really know how to guage how well we are doing. Often we won’t ever know what impact we have made.

Sometimes, we have seen the kitchen staff come out of the kitchen to stop and listen briefly or we see a cleaning person put down their duster and peek around a corner. Sometimes, we have whole families who come in and enjoy the music from the senior to the grandchildren. We never know how broad we are casting our nets, but I guess that’s for God to worry about. Our job is just to show up and love. In doing that, we are making ourselves available to be used by God. In return, God, in His graciousness, drops us a message often enough to let us know how we’re doing. We shouldn’t expect that, though. We shouldn’t need that reinforcement from God in order to get out there and love people. The reward of loving other people is that we are loved in return.

The great thing about loving people is that you don’t have to go to a senior facility, or for that matter any particular place, to do it. You can do it where you are most comfortable. You can do it in your own neighborhood and even at work. It’s just that when you start doing it regularly and build those relationships with regularity, a deeper and more important trust is built. You can do the one minute relational thing, but I think that the six month track is more rewarding.

You never know what is going on in people’s lives. I remember someone telling me once that they were offended by a rude waiter, and when they complained, the manager told them that the person had had a loved one die that very day. That story has stuck with me for some reason, always reminding me that we never know what’s really going on in someone’s life. The pain of losing you loved one is rough, but losing them slowly over a period of weeks, months, or even years is draining. That’s why the age old indian proverb that you shouldn’t judge a man until you have walked two miles in his moccasins is still relevant. My feet are sore from just thinking about walking in someone else’s moccasins, but then, me feet are always sore…