To Make A Difference

Last Friday, my sister and I went to our youth group Christmas party. It was filled with fun and laughter, though the highlight of the night was going Christmas-caroling at a local nursing home!
My great-grandma lived and died in our home, and she had also briefly lived in a retirement home that we visited every week. But neither my sister nor I had every been in a nursing home, and we quickly realized that it is much different than a retirement home. In a retirement home, each person has their own nice apartment and they usually live independently.

In sharp contrast, a nursing home is made up of hospital-style rooms that have two to three people inhabiting each one, their quarters being separated by a hospital curtain. Some of them have to stay in bed most of the time because they are too sick to get up and around. Now think about this: the life of many elderly people spent basically sleeping, being aided with personal hygiene, eating, and watching TV. What if we had to  live like that? Pretty miserable existence, huh? Now, add to the equation that a lot of them don't have any family or friends that ever come to visit them....they're virtually all alone. They must feel so hopeless, so alone...so meaningless. The sad thing is, we as a society tend to cast them off as too old, dumb, clueless, deaf, etc. to be worried or cared about. We almost treat them like old horses that can no longer work and benefit society.

 But what we fail to realize is that they are people. They have so many stories and bits of wisdom to share, so many funny little sayings, and so much love to give if only we'd be there to listen, to receive the wisdom that they collected over so many years, to care about them. There will be so many elderly people spending Christmas all alone this year, with no one to know or even care. A lot of them may not even have the hope that the birth of Jesus gives.

Dear reader, the elderly are so precious! They have emotions, opinions, thoughts, likes, and dislikes that we take for granted every day. Imagine if each one of us just took one day a month-just one day, or part of a day- to go to a nursing home or retirement home to read a book to those who can no longer see well enough to read, or to play our instruments, or to just sit and listen to their stories. Imagine how much wiser we'd be, and what kind of effect we could have on those feeling useless, alone, and hopeless! No one should have to live the last days of their life alone, thinking that not a soul in the world cares. We have the opportunity to be there for someone who may have no one, and to make a difference in the simplest way!

So, next time you have the opportunity to go caroling at a nursing home or volunteer with the elderly, take it. You never know what kind of impact you could make, and what wisdom could be imparted to you!