How to minister to others - Part 2

I had an opportunity today to figure out another way to minister to others. I guess this is the second installment to a several part blog post. I'm not sure how many installments there will be, I guess I'll have to see how my week goes. Anyway, back to Part 2. This one is not as blunt as the first, but it's still pretty direct. Here goes. Shut your pie hole. Again, pretty simple but effective. And what do I mean? I mean just that, shut your pie hole. There are countless opportunities that we run across everyday where the people in your life are struggling with overwhelming problems. But most of the time we use the short lived interactions with those people, be it a relative, a co-worker, or fellow church member, to vomit forth all of the baggage and boredom that consumes our lives onto anyone that will just sit still for more than two minutes. Well I've come to realize that it's not all about me. People are hurting and are desperate to have a shoulder to cry on, or at least have an ear that's willing to listen for a little while. I was having a pretty crappy morning at work and was up to my you-know-what in stuff when I found myself sitting at my co-worker Tim's desk. We were trying to tell each other what we each knew about a particular project when I asked him how his mother was doing. She had suddenly become ill at work one day with some kind of ruptured blood vessel near the spleen about a week and a half ago. The doctors still had no idea what caused the rupture or how to fix it. As Tim began to recount all the details about his mom and her ordeal, I thought to myself, I really don't have time for this. I've got so much work I should be doing now, I really don't have time for this. But as Tim talked about him mother's illness and how lucky she was to be alive, his story slowly shifted from her being sick to her job as a nurse and then on to how she became a nurse. He told me of how his mom was barely 16 when he was born, was kicked out of her house by her dad, how the sperm donor hit the road, and how she had to work three jobs to pay the bills. She busted her tail to get her kids grown and out into the real world and then went back and got her GED. She then went to school to become a dental hygienist. She didn't like that career so she studied to be a nursing assistant. She excelled at that and then took it a step further. She is now a registered nurse and is highly thought of at the hospital she works. I tell all of this for two reasons. First, Tim's story to me went from uncertainty and worry to a real sense of pride and accomplishment. As he talked he began to smile and his countenance brightened. Second, It also let me into a side of his life that I didn't know, which told me a little about why he is the way he is. We all have a story that makes us who we are, and now I know a little more about Tim's. And all of this would have been missed if I hadn't sat down, put aside my busy morning and shut my pie hole. As we go through our busy days with our meetings and projects and play dates and hectic schedules, I think we all need to just shut our pie holes for a few minutes, take the spotlight off of ourselves for a while and listen to the people around us who are desperate for a quiet and attentive friend to lean on and share with.