In Light of What Happened Yesterday

I found this written on a sheet of notebook paper in a book of Renoir paintings from my sophomore year of college:

"In light of what happened yesterday..." was the first phrase I heard out of nearly every professor and student's mouth on this day, September 12, 2001. I woke up this morning thinking everything that had happened yesterday was a dream. Unfortunately, it was one that everyone else had dreamed as well. Everyone's first question inevitably is "what's going to happen to me?" Our selfish nature automatically makes sure we're okay before thinking of anyone else. Only after getting over that is it, "what can I do?" "What can we do?" "What could I do?"

Love is a word that has been used and abused for as long as I remember and I assume long before that as well. It's also an action that is hard to produce, especially the way Jesus asked us to. We, who are professing Christians, have all said to God and others that we love God. Many of us daily ask God for opportunities to "serve Him." Most of us, myself included, would prefer that God allow us to serve Him in a more glamorous position. Being on stage has always been my preference to "serve God." I very much enjoy allowing others to see "the way God uses me." However, it seems when God truly puts opportunities to love and serve Him by loving and serving the "least of these" my heart rarely complies with the same vigor that I verbally confess my love for God.

She's much different from the other students at Campbell University. I'll call her "Susan." Exactly how Susan is different I just couldn't tell you. I can't quite put my finger on it, she just is. Susan's differences can, at times, be quite annoying to me. She doesn't like to knock before intruding upon my dorm room at any time. No matter what I happen to be doing, she never acknowledges that she might be interrupting me. She takes the phrase "overstaying your welcome" to a whole new level. The inappropriateness of talking while chewing one's food has never crossed her mind. It's a mountain of things like these but for some reason she has attached herself to Laura Kate and I.

On this day, the day after a horrible tragedy strikes America, Susan somehow or another hurts herself and is on crutches. She lives two floors above me (in a building without an elevator) so it's not exactly convenient to help her. After expecting all day to receive a call from a "special friend" the phone rings in my dorm room. I jumped up to answer it, "Hello?" "Hi" a small voice squeaked from the other end. Definitely not my special friend. I actually considered hanging up.

"Bethany?" she asked in her strange voice.

"Hey Susan, how ya doin'?" I asked.

"Oh not so good. I'm up here trying to study for psychology but I can't even get up and walk around. I don't do well just sitting here but what else can I do? And I'm getting kind of hungry." She paused waiting for me to offer something. I didn't. "Have you gone to lunch yet?"

"No but I was kind of waiting on..."

"Oh great! Will you come up here and help me down and we can go?"

I didn't officially have any other plans except studying but I knew if I took her it would cost me at least an extra hour of time. Time that would not be spent enjoyably to me.

"Look Susan..." I started

"What are you too busy? I'm really really bored up here."

I was picturing her room. Stark white walls with none of the usual college posters and pictures covering them. The only decor was an old bedspread she'd probably been using since kindergarten and a grimy shag rug on which I was afraid to step. The room also smelled horribly like something was decaying in every crack and corner. Here I was sitting on my fun snake skin chair under my loft bed clothed with a leopard print bedspread and matching pillow sham in a room that smelled like swiped chocolate chip cookies, if anything. I was thinking, the only reason I wouldn't go help her and take her to lunch is that I think I'm too good for her. Am I? Did God make me better than her? More valuable? I immediately knew it was a lie.

"No, sorry, I'll be right up... Do you need anything else?"

"Just a hug when you get here." she replied. She loves hugs.

Maybe love is doing something for someone who can't pay you back. Maybe it's real love when you just help someone even when you know they probably won't help you in return. When you do something and know that no one's going to like you more or think better of you because you do it. Then remembering in humility that it's what has already been done for you Once but a thousand times over. The grace extended to me in the humblest of ways should compel me so much more quickly than it does! If only I could remember that One, who truly was "better than me" in every way, put Himself below me, served me, gave His all that I might have Life.

In light of what happened yesterday... let us learn to love.