Taking the Time to Make a Difference

I was waiting in line behind a woman who was waiting for an answer. She didn’t get the answer she wanted. It happened at the dry cleaners a few days ago. I went to pick up a couple of dress shirts there, and I stood with my ticket in hand behind a woman who was engaged in a very serious conversation with the clerk. She was leaving that evening to go out of town for a wedding. She had brought something – a dress, I am sure – to be cleaned so that she could wear it for the wedding. She had told the intake clerk at the time that she absolutely needed the dress that evening, and she had been assured it would be ready. It wasn’t ready. Another search of the shop was futile. The dress was not there among the items that came in from the location where the work is actually performed. I waited a little longer while the woman repeated her story, and once again the clerk explained that the actual cleaning process is performed at another location, and that the dress had not come in. The woman said again that she needed the dress, and asked the clerk to call that other location, and to try to retrieve her dress. The clerk complied, but predicted accurately that no one would answer the phone call because “they have all gone for the day.” At that point, the distraught woman asked for a form to file a complaint, and another employee handed me my shirts. That’s all I know about the woman who had been waiting in line ahead of me. Every time I drive past the dry cleaner’s location, though, I wonder how the story ended.

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There were some unusual circumstances at our house in recent days, too. On a Friday morning, my wife waited at home for an appliance repair man. She waited all morning. A phone call to the shop only added to the frustration of a morning wasted in waiting – as we learned that the repair shop had mistakenly scheduled the call in the afternoon. My wife and I traded places in the afternoon. She went to work and I went home to wait. The repairman came; he fixed the dishwasher and the oven, tested both of them, handed me the bill and was on his way. Less than two days later, the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through the area and knocked out our electric power. As I write this column, we have been without power for four days – so the dishwasher and the oven are both useless, as we wait for the power to return.

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What are you waiting for? Take the time to reflect on the times you have had to wait for someone — perhaps you recall eagerly awaiting a joyful reunion with a loved one, or an angry hour of unfulfilled expectations. Then think about the people in your community who are waiting for more important events in their lives — emergency medical care, plumbing repairs from an absentee landlord, a nursing home visit from a loved one, the return of a husband and father from prison, permission to enter the country to be reunited with family, the necessary paperwork to hold a legal job, the safe return of a son or daughter from Iraq or Afghanistan, or any of a multitude of events somehow out of the power of the individual who continues to wait. Take the time to examine such a situation, and then take action to be of assistance. The challenge for every Christian family is to be available at the time of another’s need – as Jesus describes it in the Gospel of Matthew – at a time when another is hungry or thirsty, sick or in prison, naked, alone or without shelter.

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How many people in your community are waiting for someone to answer the call? How many people in your community might be capable of making a difference? How many people will be told in their time of need that “they have all gone for the day.”

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