An Understanding Heart

In today’s first reading, God said to king Solomon, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” Solomon could have asked for anything; great riches, a long life, death to his enemies. But instead he said, “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”  God was pleased with Solomon’s request and said, “I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one equal to you.” (1 Kings 3:5,9,12)

Two things I pray for every day are wisdom and compassion. We encounter people throughout the day and it is so easy to cast judgment on them; to think they are over-reacting to a situation or not behaving how we think they should. We have no idea what people are dealing with.

Many years ago I was teaching 1^st grade Religious Education. The way the schedule was set; there were three “shifts” of classes back to back with 10 minutes in between classes. We had 5 minutes from the time our class ended until the next class’ teachers were coming into the room to prepare for their class. It was very chaotic. The parents were in the halls picking up their children, the next group of students was in the hall with their parents, waiting to come in. One of the teachers that taught after us was very impatient and expected us to be out of the room in those 5 minutes and made it very clear that she was unhappy when that did not happen. A couple of months into the year we had a meeting for the teachers to talk about how things were going. This woman was complaining about the situation and in particular about the previous week. I explained that I was one of the teachers in that class but that I was out the previous week and before I could even explain why; she said that if I made the commitment to teach then I should be there! Her tone was so ugly and my eyes began to tear up. The reason I wasn’t there was because I found out the previous Friday that my 16 week old baby had died in utero. For four years we had tried to have a baby and now had my second miscarriage; would I ever be able to carry another pregnancy to term? I was devastated! I was too upset to explain the situation and I am not sure she would have even been sorry for her rudeness.

When families are dealing with their child having cancer, the pain, fear, and challenges they face are overwhelming and yet many of these families are also facing other challenges such as a recent divorce, a recent death in the family, loss of a job, illness in another family member or many other situations. Or the diagnosis of their child’s cancer brings up the fear that they are going to die just like grandma did from her cancer. We try and provide support to each of our families but they all come from different backgrounds, they all have preconceived ideas of what this diagnosis means and it takes time for us to learn these things. We have to earn their trust and care for them with the compassion and love of Christ. When they yell at us out of fear or frustration we have to let it roll off of our backs and see them through Christ’s eyes.

Wisdom isn’t always an easy thing. Often times it would be easy to “play dumb” and do what we want to do instead of what we know is right in our heart. I love the following scripture passage on wisdom.

“Stoop your shoulders and carry her and be not irked at her bonds. With all your soul draw close to her; with all your strength keep her ways. Search her out, discover her; seek her and you will find her. Then when you have her, do not let her go; thus will you afterward find rest in her, and she will become your joy. Her fetters will be your throne of majesty; her bonds, your purple cord. You will wear her as your robe of glory, bear her as your splendid crown.” (Sirach 6:26-31).