Padma seemed to be a well-balanced 40-something single lady. She participated in church activities with her mother, and shared the same home with her. Sadly, Padma’s mother passed away one day. Everyone was sorry for the loss, as Padma’s mother was one of those whose personality shone.

After having been absent for a few months, Padma began to make quiet appearances in church again. People offered sympathy and asked how she was doing. She responded by asking for lifts and money.

Soon, I learnt that Padma had not been working for some years before her mother’s passing. Padma’s mother shared the money she received as a widow of a civil servant with her adult offspring. Now, Padma had to get a job and be independent.

I think many Christians have an inbuilt desire to help. As such, more often than not, Padma got money, food, transport and other amenities. However, Padma eventually tried the patience of the very most patient in the congregation.

Some of her mother’s friends went out of their way to get her job appointments, while Padma appeared to go out of her way to turn all of them down. “The sun would be in my eyes in the afternoon,” she said of one offer. Of another, “I would come home too late, and walking from the bus stop to my home is dangerous for a woman like me,”

For two years, excuses, ranging from plausible to the most impossible, would skip glibly off her tongue about her job status. One evening, as we drove her home from church, I decided I was done with her excuses for not getting a job. “Don’t you want to be independent, Padma?” I exploded, “Aren’t you ashamed that you’re living off other people’s hard earned money?”

Padma mumbled something while my mother pressed her lips into a thin hard line. When Padma got out of the car, my mother rebuked, “We should love her. We should help her. This is what God asked us to do. Remember the parable of the sheep and the goats?”

I just ‘pff-ed’, saying, “If we continue giving money to her, she will never need to find a job. She will never be independent. And I don’t think that’s love.”

My thoughts then directed on to my mother. How difficult it must be for a parent! How much should you give? When should you stop? Do parents even think about this when they raise their children?

And on the Christian faith, do we have to always be like the sheep? Feeding the poor, giving water to the thirsty, caring for those in need? Padma, for all intents and purposes, fits into this category. She had no money, no job, little food, no company, surely then we should help her?

It’s likely Padma and others like her honestly don’t believe they are parasites. Perhaps their parents or guardians just gave and gave and gave, not knowing when to stop giving, so that eventually, they felt the world owed them a livelihood.

I think people like Padma need “tough love”. Throw them out of the house and let them learn the hard way that they need to look after themselves. They have a mind, two hands, two legs, eyes that see, ears that hear, digits that move, why can’t they get a job and work hard like the rest of us?

Still, I battled with Jesus’ call for compassion and Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12:

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

I haven’t heard this preached enough at church. Maybe it’s because Malaysia doesn’t have unemployment benefits or similar social security schemes to cause Christians to opt for ‘idleness’. However, our Asian community has an in-built unemployment failsafe – our parents or older siblings.

Padma did not know how to deal with the revocation of her unemployment benefits.

Many times after that, I ignored my mother, and told Padma firmly that I would not take her home unless she got herself a job. Padma took this in stride, moving on to others who offered unconditional favours.

Padma settled on two kindly ladies who took turns in giving. These women occasionally called my mother, and grudgingly released their angst about Padma’s freeloading. My mother would cluck and empathize (for she too sometimes grudgingly helped), but always ended by saying, “We should help her,”

Why is it when we are faced head-on with someone like Padma, it is so much easier to give them what they ask for, even if it is to their eventual detriment? Why is it more difficult to take tougher stance of saying, “No, please get yourself together and be useful,” For isn’t being useful something asked of us? Isn’t this one of the meanings of ‘salt of the earth’?

Padma eventually received a nominal monthly stipend from the church for just for existing. She was never given the opportunity to learn to be independent or useful, because, in the end, she was admitted into a mental asylum.

A friend of mine summed up the situation, “It’s not that she’s a child, when we can tell that she needs help. She’s an adult, and therefore, we thought she was behaving like the rest of us. But she really did not know how to cope. In the end, I think she just snapped.”

What would have happened if we had meted out tough love? I suppose that’s something that we’ll always wonder about Padma.

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