There are many ways to be there when we are needed

Last week I spoke of Lt. Col. John McCrae, author of the poem “In Flanders Fields.” A physician, he went “where he was needed most” — to the trenches of World War I to care for the wounded and dying. Before that in his medical practice he cared for a terminally ill child who he wrote had a kitten who stayed near the boy — as if it knew “who needs it most.”

Where am I most needed? Who needs me most? These are meaningful questions. Maybe ones that are neglected. Or considered and discarded for whatever reason.

I can still hear my dad asking me in elementary school if he should go fishing or come to a school program I was in. I didn’t know enough to understand how he would have preferred fishing — I wanted him in the audience and he was there.

My friend’s only child was killed in a snowmobiling accident in Alaska. I was on the plane the next day flying standby. I remember telling her, “I’m coming, baby girl.”

I wanted to be neighbors with my mother, already in her 90s, when we moved back to Priest River. But I ended up being her caregiver in a seven-month decline. She said, “You were here when I needed you most.”

This might all sound good — but there have been other times when I failed to be where I was needed. Then the guilt sets in. Guilt is a perpetual incoming tide. The only thing that’s rescued me from it is my faith which says I have a Savior who forgives — and places before me an unmarred tomorrow.

We make mistakes. Often from selfishness. My dad showed for me in my childhood, but I didn’t show for him as a teen — when I should have ridden with him on an overnight trip to his father’s funeral — and I didn’t go because it was my boyfriend’s day off.

Maybe it’s not possible to be physically present — so then it’s time to get creative and think of other ways to “be” there. Still — when given the “most” test — avenues will usually open for being where I am needed.

If God can place such knowledge in a kitten, He can certainly speak it to me.