Healing Others by Showing Up

I sat with my coworker during distribution day at a local food bank. . According to their website, every six seconds a child dies from hunger related diseases. As we sat at our information table promoting a mentoring initiative, time ticked in 6 second increments. The staff at the food bank scrambled to ready the food, trying to prolong the emptying 6-second blocks of time. The food distribution line crawled out of the building and spilled into the parking lot. It was hot. The line shuffled along. It was summer and school was not in session, so many children accompanied their parents in line, waiting to fill their carts with food. The facility was packed, all trying to beat these games of hunger. We sat and talked with those in line about opportunities for children without a dad in the home to be mentored. While they waited for the void in their stomachs to be filled, we talked of filling a hole in the heart - a hole carried by too many, a gaping hole left by absent fathers. 90% of homeless and runaway youth grew up in fatherless homes. I wondered how many in the food distribution line suffered from the symptoms of abandonment and the fatherless wound that when untreated, never heals whole.  

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