"I'm Choking to Death."

“I’m choking to death.” Gladys’s voice came lilting down the rest home hallway as carefree as a spring morning. The contradiction between what she was saying and how she was saying it was colossal – which is why I remember it 30 years later. What Gladys really wanted was someone to pay her attention. The little girl was still alive inside her now old body saying “Look at me! Watch what I can do!” Over and over, as I mopped the hallways outside her room, I could hear her pleading for someone to focus on her and her alone. And over and over I would chuckle to myself and continue making dirty swirls on the floor.

Paul writes in Philippians 2:4, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Good luck with living that in this world. Not only is it our nature to be focused on ourselves, but our culture applauds self-obsession. I’ve asked myself when was the last time I really got involved in helping someone else. Not the cursory “I’ll pray for you.” or the obligatory “How are you?” When was the last time I invested myself in someone else – where I put in time, energy and focus? When was the last time I took someone else’s success as seriously as my own? Should I tell you that I haven’t liked the answers to my questions?

Such giving – such investment in someone else’s life will only occur when we believe that we have enough, that we have nothing else to prove, that another’s life is worth as much as ours. This kind of belief is not from within ourselves. It cannot be motivated by guilt or fear; instead it must be empowered by the Father’s love and acceptance radiating through our lives to the lives of others. “We love because he first loved us.” (I John 4:19). So often I have been unwilling – unable – to undertake for someone else because I was busy making self-centered swirls on a dirty floor. I was trying to clean up my own life or at least make it sparkle more than other’s lives. I was trying to do something that could only be done for me.

“I’m choking to death.”

“You’re being silly - what are you doing in there? Let me put this mop back in the bucket so we can visit for a while.”