So it's 5.30am.
I had gone to bed barely 4 hours before, and already I had woken up more times than I could count. I wouldn’t call it a restless or tiresome sleep, but I certainly didn’t have the luxury of waking up only when I needed to.
It is 30° (-1C) in Florida right now. For those that don’t know, Floridians have one nightmare: cold weather. Hurricanes we can handle. But our winters aren’t supposed to go below 60° (16C). Yet, bundled in covers, asleep in a warm, safe home, I somehow managed to hang on by a thread at the end of the night. Closer to the fact, I had actually woken up sweating because of the unnecessary amount of layers I slept with. Naturally, I pushed the covers off for a few minutes to cool down.
In that next minute I could feel the cool air against my skin, but I wasn’t cold (due to the steam-wrap of blankets I had exited only seconds previously). It felt nice for a second. I started to cool off pretty quickly. I thought about going back to sleep sans covers, but I knew even though my covers were too warm, abandoning them completely would just leave me shivering by the time I woke up again. At that moment, I had one of those thoughts that I couldn’t help myself from having. Maybe if I had seen it coming, I would’ve tried to stop it; I don’t know. But I thought “it would be horrible if I had to sleep like this, without any covers.” Immediately I realized the gravity of that thought, and the reality that, even in Orlando, there were more people than I was aware of who were shivering at this same moment. And, being only partially self-absorbed, I remembered that Orlando wasn’t the only city in the U.S., or the world for that matter.
My heart broke, lying in bed, just thinking about everyone who didn’t have shelter over this past night. Who knows how many? Even one who had to endure this would be worth caring for. And yet, in the moment, I can’t say for sure if I would be willing to give up my cover if someone would have walked into my bedroom and asked me directly for it. I hated cold weather, and I hated being cold. I had turned into Jonah, a man jaded by his own history of comfort, and one who was unwilling to endure any unpleasant manner for the sheer belief that he didn’t have to. After all, what guarantee was he given that he wouldn’t have to suffer, if even a little, like anyone else?
Bundled in the personal importance of my own covers, I knew that I didn’t want to go one night without them. How much more so, then, would one who didn’t even have walls to block the wind? Even if I didn’t have covers, I was still in a heated house. I could’ve survived.
As for those people who spent that night outside the 4 warm walls of my home, I don’t know how they fared. What was merely unpleasant for me was likely devastating for them. But, having only taken the covers off myself, I realized that I didn’t want anyone else to have to sleep in the cold, without provision. No one. Not ever. Having been comforted my entire life, taking it for granted all the while, I now want to fight for those who didn’t have it given them. For some reason, I feel I owe it to them. For whom was I to be angry at for this cold weather? Regardless, shelter and warmth were given to me. I did nothing to earn my comfort; so it should be for everyone suffering.
It’s thoughts like these that remind me what’s important to fight for in this world. What comfort might I gain from pouring everything into a well-paying job? What would happen if, somehow, my career didn’t go as planned? No matter how I may try to avoid it, the truth is that to those who are given much, much is required [LUK 12/48]; to those who are comforted are given the ability and obligation to comfort others in return [2CO 1/3-4]. Should everyone quit their jobs to help full-time? No. But no one should see any job as a roadblock to helping others get by. As for me, right now anyways, I don’t want to do one thing other than comfort those who are in need.