No, I Stink More.

My darling,

I come from a country where the streets are filled with beggars. Mothers with little babies, grown men, old grandpas and grandmas, little boys and girls...you name it, we got it. In fact, I have seen it so much while growing up that it has stopped shocking me. And the truth is that I can't give money to every single beggar who asks me for it, because by the time I get home, I would be broke.

But by nature, I am a very compassionate person. I will cry if I even see a little puppy all manged and in bad condition on the road. So what I find worse are humans living on the street with no home and no real life. My heart breaks to think that some of those children may not ever get to go to school and learn and excel in life like I had the opportunity to do. It saddens me to think of the many women who live on the street who are raped and beaten up because they have no secure place to live or a husband or father to protect them.

Now there is a way of thinking, I don't know if it is a common way of thinking but it's definitely out there and it saddens me the most. It is the digusting notion that we should not give beggars money or anything because they are liars and thieves and instead of begging they should find a job and not be poor. I agree, there are those beggars who do lie and who do steal and use begging as a business. But what I would like to ask the world in general is this. Have you never told a lie? Have you never stolen anything? Have you never deceived someone to get your own way? Because if somebody answers, no I have never lied, need I say more?

The truth is, just because life is comfortable for me and I have everything I need and I have food and I have a job and I have a warm home to come home to every night, I have no right to look down on other people whose conditions are worse and pass judgement on them from my little chair of self-righteousness. But that is what we do. We walk right past those beggars, not even noticing their existence, in fact, even annoyed at their existence. It annoys us that they come behind us all the time or they smell or they are dirty. What's worse is that  we complain about how dishonest they are and then go home and tell a lie or two of our own. How have we become so cold-hearted and selfish? Is it because we have never experienced gut-wrenching hunger or we have never had to sleep in the cold rain? Or is it because we have not had people spit on us or we have not known what it's like not be able to brush your hair everyday or brush your teeth or just have a nice warm shower? What has made us so hard and judgemental on those less fortunate than us? I mean we look at pictures of little starving children in Africa and ignore the old man who begs at the top of our road?

NO.

The Bible says, "Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need" Prov 21:13.

As a Christian, as a human, as a woman, my greatest gift to the poor is first my compassion. I don't have money to give to every beggar I meet. Sometimes I do, sometimes I buy them some food to eat or sometimes I give them a smile instead of a disgusted look. But in whatever I do, I try to do it with love. I'll tell you why.

Because when I was a liar and a cheater, a theif and a criminal, when I harboured darkness in my heart, when my life was so digusting and stunk so bad that nobody on this earth could or should have loved me, Jesus stretched out His arms to die for me on a cross and said, 'This is how much I love you'.

It's time we did the same for others.

Be a compassionate woman, my darling.

Love always,
Mummy