If We Faint Not

Pretty soon our entire family is heading out west for my sister’s wedding. And even though she isn’t throwing a super formal kind of wedding, it’s not a t-shirt sort of affair either – so Gabriel needed some clothes with buttons. My husband and I left the baby to snooze for an hour in Juli’s arms and headed out with Gabriel to our favorite second-hand store.

On the way, the conversation somehow veered onto the topic of food. Eli asked how the kids ate back in Nicaragua. “Pretty simply,” Gabriel replied but added, slightly defensively, “We ate delicious things too.”

“Of course.” Eli said gently, “But how often?”

“Maybe once a week.”

And it hit me – he was talking about meat. On a good week, they ate meat once! What? No! That means every other day they were wielding rice and beans like a sword and shield to beat back hunger.

Rice and beans.

                           Beans and rice.

                                                    Every damn day.

                                                                                  Or starve.

Sometimes, in the midst of the grinding daily routine that is slowly pulverizing me back into dust, I forget about mercy. I forget the why behind all of this extra laundry and grocery shopping. And I realize that I am such an asshat.

So even as I am pretending like that’s a totally normal thing to hear and trying to discretely scrape my jaw off the be-doughnuted floor of my husband’s car, I am thankful for the reminder. It seems like Doing Good should feel good. Maybe it will later – I’m not giving up on future warm fuzzies! But really, serving people involves, well, people. And human beings are needy as hell. So instead of feeling fulfilling and uplifting, it feels a whole lot more like the next person who calls my name while another person is currently talking to me and jeezy creezy can you not see there is a crying baby in my lap?! is getting punched in the face. I mean right in the chupabanano.

Uh what was I talking about? That’s right, doing good.

“Let us not become weary in doing good,” Saint Paul wrote to the Galatians. Well there’s a handy clue right there; doing good is exhausting. “For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” I also appreciate the other versions that say “if we faint not.”

You know what happens at harvest time? You get to eat! Maybe that’s not exactly what Paul meant but I see no reason to stop taking Paul wildly out of context now.

Maybe Doing Good doesn’t feel good but it’s still worth the doing. Before, my kids didn’t eat very well; now they do. Before, my kids didn’t have nice clothes; now they can go to this wedding without shame. So I don’t get to spend all my time making my baby giggle or hanging out with my awesome husband. So I have to re-learn how to subtract fractions and find the area of some random shape. In a short amount of time, things are already changing for the better and I have faith that these great kids will continue to blossom in the light of opportunity.

So long as I don’t pass out.