Few years back I pulled into a local gas station to fill up the gas tank in my car. As I walked out of the store,  I had a lady approach me and ask for a cigarette. I had just bought a fresh pack and my car was still being filled so I figured I’d have a smoke with her. We walked away from the station a bit and stood in the parking lot smoking.

It was cold outside. Dead of winter. The air had a crisp chill in it. We could see our breath as we spoke. She looked rough. I could tell she hadn’t showered in a while and her clothes were dirty and well worn. She looked the part of everything you could imagine a homeless woman would look. In spite of this she was surprisingly upbeat and very thankful for the smoke. As we smoked she began talking about her son. She spoke so highly and proud of him. I knew nothing of him but from her description I began to wonder how/why she was out there standing in the cold shivering with me smoking a cigarette. So I asked her, “Does your son live around here? Why aren’t you with him?”

Her countenance changed. Her voice got softer. I leaned in to make sure I had heard her right. “He died a few years back”, she said. Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke. Said she couldn’t handle it. He simply went away and didn’t come back. She started drinking heavily. Pushed her family away. Lost her job and her house. Just couldn’t shake the memory of him or the life that was lost.

I didn’t know what to say. What can you say? 

I asked her if she had some place to go that night. “It’s gonna get much colder”, I said. She said she did and thanked me once again for the cigarette. I reached into my pocket and gave her what I had of money. It wasn’t much, but she said it would help.

I’ve thought of her a lot over the years. Haven’t spoke of it though – until now. I’d like to imagine that somehow, someway, she got the help she needed. The kind of help I was so incapable of giving. That she’s somewhere living a better life, surrounded by family, pets, and all the smokes she can smoke. But my guess is she’s dead now and the smoke she had with me on that cold night was one of many that will be forever lost in the painful memories of her life, recorded somewhere in the history of time.

You speak of God, Guns, and Country…and I am keen of all those things…

But what good is any of it if you can’t look beyond yourself, past the outward appearance to the heart and soul of the people you encounter?

You have a solid job and you work hard. You’re good at what you do. You stand and sing the praises of Job on Sunday, but I wonder...do you really understand Job? I’d wager if you truly did most of us would be welcoming the metallic taste of a bullet in the back of our throat if we went through what Job did.

You earn a solid wage and you speak of taxes and paying your fair share. So proud to be pullin paper. But I have seen much: houses, cars, accounts, investments, etc. that would make your brain spin, and I tell you…the taxes you pay could yet afford to pour a ten foot sidewalk in the sea of taxes that are collected. In fact, if you stopped paying the taxes you owed tomorrow, no one would really know. It would change nothing and have no impact on anything.

I don’t like the homeless problem any more than the next guy

and we can argue the economics behind it all day long; but to ignore or dismiss the core of what is behind it as being nothing more than laziness is pure ignorance.

With drug abuse, mental illness, family abuse, childhood trauma, economic disparities, etc. the numbers of homeless are set to rise.

But not you…you won’t be homeless…you have an education…you have a strong family unit/support system…you’re financially secure…you have a future…

There was a king mentioned in the bible who was also confident of his accomplishments and of his future. They called him, “King Nebuchadnezzar“. He was a great king and owned much. Commanded armies. People lived and died by his command – and God took his mind. Seven years he spent eating grass in a field like an animal.

WHERE is YOUR kingdom? Where are YOUR armies? That you could be so great and accomplish so much for God to spare you? Are you not so much greater than a King? 

In a blink what you have can be taken from you. One solid brain aneurysm and you’d be drooling and spitting while you ate your food. One turn of the wheel and that beautiful car you drive could put you in I.C.U. staring down the barrel of 18 months of physical therapy.

I KNOW what you can become…I can see it.

A brief whisper in the wind resulting in a drooling mass of worthlessness…only to be passed by in the street with looks of disdain.

Homelessness. Poverty. Drug use and abuse. Child abuse. Traumas.

Any thoughts or opinions on these things that don’t include compassion lack understanding.

And I pray that if you lack that…God helps you gain it.

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