This is the first time in my life, at least as I remember it, that I’ve not attended a Christmas Eve service at any church. There are local churches in the area and we probably could have stuck out a long wait to get to one of the services, but instead we opted to visit with this 92 year old man.
Over the years, I’ve made many visits to nursing homes, old people’s houses, and other places which house the elderly. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I don’t really enjoy spending too much time with the elderly. Maybe it’s because I’m not patient. Maybe I’m not very compassionate. Maybe my attention span is too short for the long stories in which they usually engage me. I tend to get bored, lose words, and often never know what to say. I get uncomfortable with the silence between conversations because I know a lot of them are waiting for me to bring up the conversation. I’m not usually someone of many words, especially when I can’t think of anything significant to say. Thus, visiting the elderly has never really been that enjoyable to me.
However, I know that I need to learn more patient, learn more compassion, learn to deal with this problem because almost everyone I know who is as old as my parents will eventually become those elderly people. And I’ll want to visit them. And I’ll want to know how they’re doing.
I know that we made that man’s evening. He was very excited and happy to have visitors. His mouth was moving light speed with story after story about how he used to work, what he used to do and how intelligent he really is. Although I could only understand half of what he said, I know that sitting there and listening was probably more effective thing to do with my time than going to a Christmas Eve service. We reached out to someone, helped bring Christmas cheer to him. Sometimes, I realize I must use humility and forget my selfish ways to make a difference in others. It’s not always going to be fun, it may not be what I really want to do, but it’s more important than anything else that I could have done.