Perfectly-Timed Encouragement

I'm really bad at blogging consistently. No matter, I've been wanting to share a story from a week or so ago, and now that I'm sick it seems I have a perfect opportunity.

This summer's CityLights team visited the 'homeless park' in downtown STL and invited three new friends home for dinner. I'll confess that I don't remember all of their names, but one in particular was a voice of assurance I needed to hear.

After a large-group discussion, Carl walked up to me. He'd already shared that he was many years clean of heroin addiction and found it gut-wrenching to watch other guys shoot up around him in the park. We started to chat about homeless folks I've gotten to know a little, and I decided to follow his vulnerability and ask the question I've been craving an answer to.

See, in my part of town, I don't encounter a lot of homeless folks in the park or walking down the sidewalk like in other areas of the city. Around here, I mostly only get to see folks for 30 seconds at a stoplight. The cast of characters changes regularly, which is already difficult for me because it's so hard to get to know any of them. But recently, my supply of mini-toiletries, snacks, and bus passes has run dry.

I hate, and I mean that, seeing someone with a "homeless: please help" sign and just driving past. I feel like I'm piling onto the thousands of messages these folks receive every day that they are worthless. I hate it. Many of these men and women are veterans or medical patients who can't afford things like cancer treatment. Many are already estranged from their families for being a drain. So when day after day, "productive" citizens scowl at, step around, or turn their faces from those who are most in need, they hear, "You have no value." I don't want to pass that message to anybody. Yet when I have nothing to offer, I don't know what to do.

Enter Carl.

I ask, "I don't want to ask you to be spokesman for 'the homeless,' but what do you think I should do? Would you appreciate someone just offering you encouraging words and prayer?"

"You say you have nothing to offer us," Carl replied, "but have you forgotten that prayer is the most powerful help you can offer? I've had people hand me everything you can think of out the car window--half-eaten sandwiches, even cans of beer. But let me tell you about the moment that's stayed with me the most out of all the time I've spend with my sign on a corner."

It seems a woman had pulled up beside him, rolled down her window, and said, "I don't have anything to give you, but I want you to know that God will see you, and I will remember you in my prayers."

He told me he thinks of her almost daily. "Ya know, the food and all that--that doesn't stay with you. What stays with you is knowing you're not alone; you're not nothing."

And then he spoke like he knew exactly what I needed to hear. He challenged me to be willing to feel rejected if every person I roll down the window for isn't thrilled to hear from me. He challenged me to make that sacrifice for the ones like him who would get through their days, maybe weeks, maybe months, on a few encouraging words. 

God's blessing to me was seeing Scott, a homeless vet I'd spoken to once before, the first time I took Carl's advice.

When I yelled out, "Sir, is your name Scott?" a vulnerability and joy washed over his face like I could never have imagined. He remembered me too, and we chatted until he told me my light was green and I needed to go. I called out, "I still pray for God to provide for you, Scott!" and he just grinned back.

Man, I loved that smile.

Meeting Men

My dear friend Megan has told me I should start writing down stories of what God's teaching me about serving His people. "How ironic," I thought the first time she mentioned the idea, "that I started a blog exactly for that purpose."

A year after my last post, I'm going to give it a try. And I won't write just because I'm supposed to, because it's a good idea to note experiences lest I forget them; that's never motivated me to journal before. No, this is my tiny attempt to acknowledge, (honestly but without having to get too personal), that God is at work in St. Louis, and that even when He's not showing me ultimate solutions to hardship and brokenness and poverty, He's always teaching me something. 

Yesterday I met two men. Both claimed to be homeless; at least one actually was. Lamar I met first. 

"Excuse me ma'am, I hate to bother you, but I'm trying to get bus fare and I was just wondering if you could spare anything to help me out."

His shirt looks a little damp, having stood longer in the sprinkling rain than I.

"I'm not one of those bad guys you see out here..." His voice trails off as he half-heartedly holds out a newsprint magazine page with inch-tall headshots of who-knows who. "This is me." He lifts a finger toward one square. "I'm just trying to get myself together."

We talk for a moment longer, exchange names, and I decide to give him what little change I have. To be honest, I'm never really sure when it's right to give money instead of buying food or just continuing conversation. I try to say a quick prayer for wisdom about what would be most serving to the individual. But when I'm not sure, I usually err on the side of, "Give to everyone who asks you" (Luke 6:30). Anyway, I hand it to him with well-wishes of getting where he's going safely.

I walk away, slowly realizing how desperately Lamar clung to the idea of a positive identity.

I often wish after these conversations that I'd been brave enough to say more. 

Down the block, I pull the car over to fill my gas tank, and when I step out, I hear a voice coming from the other end of the pump. 

"Hello ma'am, how are ya, would I be able to pump your gas for you or maybe wash your windows or really anything to help cuz I'm homeless and it's raining and I don't know how I'm gonna get to a shelter." Like so many homeless folks, he rushes to say as much as he can before backs are turned. 

Holding out my hand, I introduce myself. "And what's your name, sir?"

"I'm Keith. Glad to meet you, Julie. And like I said, anything I can do to help, I just don't know how else to get where I'm going."

Feeling inadequate, I tell him honestly, "I only had a few coins, but I gave them to a guy I just met down the street named Lamar."

"Damnit, Lamar," he exhales. But I continue.

"How long have you been out here, Keith?"

"About six months now. I walk down to that unemployment office a few times a week to get on the computer and look for jobs, but there's just nothin."

"I'm really sorry I don't have anything to offer you. Except...if it's okay with you, I can remember you in my prayers." To be honest again, I still always feel a little sheepish when offering prayer, as if even though I know its power, I still doubt whether it's received as sincere.

Keith answers, "You know, Julie, I would really appreciate that. It feels like God's not there when you call, but I know He's there when you need Him..."

Now a guy about my age walks over and hands Keith a bag of sunflower seeds. "These are for you man. I just bought them." Keith thanks the guy sincerely, but when the car door shuts, he looks at me and says, "It's the same price--why didn't he just get me a hotdog?"

"He's trying," I offer.

"You're right. You're right."

Himself sheepish this time, he asks, "Can I pump your gas for you anyway?" I protest that he shouldn't waste his time on me, since I can't help with bus fare.

"Please allow me. If I can do something to help someone it makes me feel...like I still matter."

I nod for him to go ahead. He stops the pump at exactly the amount I asked. I shake his hand and say goodbye to him by name, as he does the same for me. As I climb into my car, the police officer who has observed our entire exchange from a nearby squad car slowly pulls away, and I notice a puzzled kind of look on her face.

The scent of being long without a shower stays on my right hand as I drive home. I think of Keith sleeping on the stone steps of a nearby church every night it's not raining. I think of him walking all night under storefront overhangs when it storms and he can't get to a shelter. I think of what it must be like to feel completely worthless, and to have people reinforce your insignificance all day long. I thank God that He's helping me and people like the sunflower-seed-guy start to notice those we'd normally overlook or, worse, avoid. 

Please pray for Lamar and Keith to know God's provision, and to deeply trust His opinion of their great value.