Simple words, great power

Many of the men and women who live at the mission are used to being treated as second-class citizens in our society. Many of them have poor self-esteem and have come to expect to be eyed with suspicion.

One man who lived at Water Street received a daily paycheck from his employer. He was expected to pay a program fee on all of his income, but after several weeks he got tired of making daily payments in my office. He began to wait until he had 3 or 4 paychecks, then came in to pay fees on all of them at one time.

After a rather long stretch of days without payment, he came to my office and said, “Thank you for your forbearance, Mr. Ron. I’ve been late a number of times.”

I offhandedly replied, “I know I can count on it coming in.”

He soon moved out of the mission into an apartment. A few weeks later I received a thank you card in which he had written about my verbal response. He wrote, “Mr. Ron, I want you to know that that was one of the finest compliments I’ve ever been given!”

I’m reminded of how easy it is to use words for building up rather than tearing down.

-Ron Pawling, Bookkeeper/Client Services