Tam’s Trench Truth

Hello and welcome back to another Thursday’s Trench Truth.

Have you ever had someone go off on you…for what you deemed no reason? Well, this last week I had a customer of mine completely unload...on me telephonically!

I completely dread moments like these and if someone is being completely rude to me I usually will just hang up the telephone. But something in me wanted to see it through, because I could sense something else was wrong. So I sat there as the woman went on for probably 5 minutes steady. I have had a few times where a customer of mine would chew me a new one, but this I could feel was something a little different. It was as if I heard an inner voice, perhaps the Holy Spirit just encouraging me to keep on the line. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere and what must have been the end of her rant, she apologized! I felt dizzy with the emotional ride, and then she confirmed what the Spirit had spoken to me: there was something else wrong. After she apologized, she then went on to tell me that her husband had passed away just two months ago and that when I had showed up a little later than I usually do, it just set her off.

I began to listen with my heart, not just my ears, and responding a few times in between her breaths. She told me how important it was for her to read her newspaper I deliver every morning since her husband died and she even confessed to feeling guilty because when he was alive, he was the one who read the paper for many, many years and then he would always want to talk with her about current events, about the things that he read…but she would always tell him she didn't want to hear it.

What she said next pierced my soul: Looking back, I’ve come to realize that I missed something with him. And it wasn’t so much what the current events were, but how he wanted to express more deeply about the world he lived in.”

She told me that for some reason that news in general had always stressed her out. But now that he was gone, she faithfully tore into the newspaper and found a world of not only drama, but of current events at schools, things going on in her community, as well as other corners of the world.

She expressed how she felt she had missed what could have been a really great part of her marriage and that now there was regret for not having participated in what she now deems could have been meaningful conversation that began with the newspaper.

Wow, her regret sparked inside of me, and I knew that she had picked up the newspaper and started to give it a go as a way of honoring her husband and marriage; that something inside clicked to give it a chance.

She is quite elderly and also very lonely. Her loneliness resonates with me on a deeper level than most, a kind of common ground that really got me thinking.

How often do we shut things down without giving them an ear or a mere few seconds because we feel that it will leave us feeling stressed, depressed or anxious?

I know that I’m guilty of this in some ways. In fact, the very way I had wanted to shut her down and not hear her out when she was expressing her anger!

People don't always want us to respond as much as they need an ear and a shoulder to not only lean on and listen, but vent upon until the real reason comes out buried beneath the pain.

So from now on I am going to try wrapping small notes around her paper... maybe they will just be a “Hi,” or a little statement that lets her know I’m trying to do a better job for her, a little something to just become more personable, ease the loneliness, let her know someone cares. 

I thank God for trusting me with these moments, for helping me to be that shoulder and realize that in the heart of a shoulder God wants us to love people Sometimes we all just need someone to be patient with us; sometimes we just need for someone to be there.

Much love everyone,

                                        ~John