by Dan Inners
On Wednesday, January 30, I had the privilege to go serve dinner to the people at the LifePath shelter in York. Now for those of you who remember, this was the first day of the Polar Vortex that hit York this past winter. The temperature was six degrees this afternoon!
My job for the evening was to serve the main dish, which started as spaghetti for the first few people and changed to chicken noodle casserole for the remainder. A few things really caught my attention this evening. As I started scooping noodles onto trays, the gentlemen running the kitchen kept telling me that I was scooping too much and needed to cut down on my serving size. I was only giving one serving spoon sized scoop and I assure you that if I were at home, my size would have been two or three heaping serving spoonsful worth. I wasn’t used to putting so little on a plate/tray.
The first group of people we served were people from the public, homeless people who were living outside during the Polar Vortex. They entered with their noses as red as Rudolph’s and yet they were so incredibly thankful for this small scoop of food that I was putting on their tray. Just about every person who came through the line looked me in the eye and thanked me for this food. This amazed me and humbled doesn’t even come close to explaining the feeling in my stomach.
As the line kept coming, the boss kept reminding me to keep my serving size small. After a short time, I noticed this one lady who kept looking at me and smiling. Of course I just smiled back. She wandered up to my station and asked if she could have seconds—I looked around and didn’t see the boss, so I said yes. Oops! The boss was right around the corner and reminded the lady as well as me that seconds were not an option. It was so hard for me to see this in action. After dinner the people we had just served needed to clear out so the people who are residents at LifePath could come eat. The residents get to eat as much as they want until the food runs out.
I left my duties as a server and am eager to return another time to give as much as I can. As I left, I was reminded of this: each and every day we get up, we look in the mirror, and some of us complain. “I don’t want to go to work;” “I don’t want to go to school;” ”I don’t want to eat this.” I met a bunch of people who literally have nothing and yet were grateful for small amounts of food and a little bit of warmth for a short time before being sent back out to the Vortex.
The next time you get up and look in the mirror, don’t look at yourself but instead see Jesus staring right back at you. Each day you awaken is a gift; you are the one responsible for how you use your daily allotted time. Let’s be thankful, joyful, humble servants. How are you going to use your time today? What are YOU going to do with it?