you know what feels good? helping other people feel better. it feels especially good when other people notice that i am helping people. i like the idea of being able to tell people i spent the summer helping people in honduras... flushing moths out of infected ears and feeding malnourished children with swollen bellies. i have to stop every now and then and ask myself, why do you want to help people, natosha... why really?
an ESL student of mine from mexico once asked me what i wanted to do with my life, why i wanted to be a nurse. i told him i wanted to serve in underserved communities around the world. his next question to me was jarring. ¨why is it that people from the united states feel sorry for our countries and think we need their help? you have poor people in the U.S., why not help them?¨ he wasn´t being argumentative. he was honestly curious. he didn´t understand the status that comes with being well traveled or the admiration that accompanies great humanitarians. he was asking me something that maybe we should all ask ourselves. why do you really do what you do?
since then, i often ask myself this question. do i want to serve in a struggling community because i sincerely want to help? or is it for my own glory? do i tell the stories of the people so that they will be served, or so i will be served? maybe, at times, i really am moved by genuine compassion and love. and more often, maybe people will think i am a brave human being with an inexhaustibly compassionate heart. but maybe only God´s opinion matters, and maybe he sees what the people can´t see... beyond what i do or what i say.
the bible tells us that no matter what we do or how much we struggle and sacrifice to help others, if we do not have love, our actions are meaningless. no matter how much sweat i put into helping mothers take care of their children better, if i don´t have love, i don´t have anything. it´s easy to think i help people for all the right reasons, but really, if i look for the glory myself, i am the resounding gong.
an ESL student of mine from mexico once asked me what i wanted to do with my life, why i wanted to be a nurse. i told him i wanted to serve in underserved communities around the world. his next question to me was jarring. ¨why is it that people from the united states feel sorry for our countries and think we need their help? you have poor people in the U.S., why not help them?¨ he wasn´t being argumentative. he was honestly curious. he didn´t understand the status that comes with being well traveled or the admiration that accompanies great humanitarians. he was asking me something that maybe we should all ask ourselves. why do you really do what you do?
since then, i often ask myself this question. do i want to serve in a struggling community because i sincerely want to help? or is it for my own glory? do i tell the stories of the people so that they will be served, or so i will be served? maybe, at times, i really am moved by genuine compassion and love. and more often, maybe people will think i am a brave human being with an inexhaustibly compassionate heart. but maybe only God´s opinion matters, and maybe he sees what the people can´t see... beyond what i do or what i say.
the bible tells us that no matter what we do or how much we struggle and sacrifice to help others, if we do not have love, our actions are meaningless. no matter how much sweat i put into helping mothers take care of their children better, if i don´t have love, i don´t have anything. it´s easy to think i help people for all the right reasons, but really, if i look for the glory myself, i am the resounding gong.
natosha
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