One of my favorite places to volunteer in Boston is the Women’s Lunch Place (WLP). The WLP is a daytime shelter that provides breakfast, lunch and social services for women and their children who are poor and/or homeless. I’m there 1 or 2 Saturdays per month, prepping breakfast and lunch. I enjoy my time there because the other volunteers are a lot of fun, great music is always blasting in the kitchen, and I feel really useful! There’s never a dull moment in the kitchen at WLP.
The other day I noticed several drawings created by either the women of the center or their kids. One painting caught my eye and made my breath catch in my throat. This glittery piece of art stated, in rainbow watercolors, “I love my life.” Wow. And that’s coming from a woman in a shelter. When I thought about that, at first it seemed like it would be hard to be satisfied with your situation if life had left you on the doorstep of an emergency shelter. But at the same time, maybe this is a vast improvement over her previous living situation. And maybe she doesn’t have her own roof over her head, she does have a roof over her head, plus a team of concerned individuals at her disposal who are more than happy to make meals for her and put her into contact with other services/agencies in the community that could provide her with assistance. This probably isn’t the life she dreamed of, but it’s one she’s grateful for.
When was the last time you saw the silver lining of a seemingly bad situation? And what did you do to turn that situation around?
