written on Tuesday April 13th 1999

Last week, my parents and I were grocery shopping before we returned home from a trip.  We had put all the groceries in the trunk and I took the cart back into the store.  When I came out, I started returning to the car when someone ran past me.  I think from that point on everything turned to slow motion for a little bit.  He ran after a cart and I tried to figure out what was going on, when I noticed someone on the ground near me.  For what seemed like forever (maybe just under a second), I tried to get straight what was going on.  I tried to decide what to do and, in what felt like a conscious decision, I walked (in seeming slow motion) over to this woman lying on the ground.  As default, I asked "Are you alright?", but as those words were still coming out of my mouth, she looked up at me and her eyes met mine.  Everything changed in that moment except for my fear...

Hundreds of thoughts were floating through my head before that moment.  I thought about what I should do.  I thought about helping her up, but that same tiny moment, she looked at me an, as our eyes met, I saw through her eyes.  I saw the humiliation of falling, the need for independence, but also the hurt, the need for help.  I ran helping her up through my mind a hundred different ways, but the fear was always the same.  I couldn't touch her without the possibility of hurting her.  I couldn't help her without the possibility of violating her.  What if she were a man instead?  I ran that through my mind too, but instead of me hurting her, I might be hurt myself.  In my mind, in that moment, there was only one way I could help someone who was hurt.  The only way it would work is if it were an innocent child instead.  Why?  Why was I not afraid of hurting a child?  Because the only hurt or violation I could inflict had to do with knowledge that an innocent child doesn't have.

She never got a chance to do anything more than look at me with those eyes that made me feel like I was doing something wrong before, in that same moment, the man who chased after the cart returned and, ignoring me, asked the exact same question out of default.  I suddenly felt even moreso like I didn't belong there, so I backed up and then walked back to the car.  The car was too far away and obscured to see any of this and I didn't say a word to my parents.

I thought about what had happened over and over.  I asked God what I was supposed to do, but it was as if I was simply an observer who tried to get involved in God's plan for someone else entirely and I was just there for observing, as in so much of my life.  What could I have done?  Really, there wasn't the time or the plan, so I tried to put it towards the back of my mind.

We are called to help others, so I felt extreme guilt eating away at me, but through prayer I was comforted.  How can I help anyone?  My fearful caution can protect myself and others, but it also limits what I can do to help people.  I suppose I'm just not meant to run out and save people in that way.  God gave me other gifts that I can use to help people.

As I know from helping my father so much in my life, I'm not really designed for the physical world.  My father always has to be busy, doing something physical (often physically straining), whereas I'm not only not physically built for manual labor but I'm also not mentally inclined toward things like that.  I've always been quiet and patient in the physical world (even as a 4 year old!).  I like observing, learning, thinking, writing, drawing, and things like that.  Things that many people would consider boring are my life.  So, maybe they can run out and rescue people, but I have my own way.

If you don't feel you're really making a difference in the world, think again.  The world is not just a physical place.  It's just as important to save someone from emotional harm as it is to save them from physical harm, maybe more important.  Many times, the only way to really help someone is simply to love them...