unexpected afternoon

I just hung out with a homeless man named Larry for about an hour. I passed by him on my way back to work after leaving lunch with a friend. He was walking down Pearl St... two plastic sacks in hand filled with garbage & dirty towels and sweat collecting underneath his bearded face and two layers of clothing in the 100 degree heat.

On most days I might have passed by and felt some sort of sympathy, but I wouldn't have stopped. Today was different. Just last night I watched a movie called Conversations with God. The theology of the movie was weak, but the man's story left me in tears. He was homeless before writing a book called Coversations with God which quickly became one of the New York Times bestsellers, and took him from rags to riches, selling over 7 million copies and translated into 34 different languages. It got me thinking about people's stories & how much we devalue and overvalue people just based on our perceptions of them. We put all homeless guys in a box...making assumptions because its safer to remain at a distance.

So I prayed last night that God would use me somehow to be an agent of hope to those that are hopeless. Incase y'all have discovered this for yourselves, God answers prayers. Sometimes faster than we would prefer.

So I'm leaving lunch and headed to get some work done when I see a guy walking beside my car. Immediately, I feel the Spirit whispering "stop". The dialogue went something like this:
Spirit: "Stop"
Me: "Huh...what? Why? What am I gonna say?"
Spirit: "Stop"
Me: "Oh man. Lord, what if he attacks me or something? That's probably not a smart idea?"
Spirit: "Stop"
Me: "But Lord, I am suppose to be working. Is that really being a wise steward of my time?"
Spirit: "Stop and offer him a drink."
Me: "ALRIGHT!... I'm turning around. This BETTER be your voice I'm listening to."

While this dialogue is going on, I run into the gas station and grab him a cold drink. I pull up beside him and offer him the drink. He accepts with a big smile on his face and starts to walk away. I tell him to wait and ask him his name. He tells me it's Larry and I stuck out my hand, "Mine's Brooke." He looked at my hand for a few seconds and then shook it graciously like it had been a while since someone exchanged this token of greeting with him. "So, Larry. What's your story?" I asked. He let down his guard a bit and began to see that I was genuinely interested. I think sometimes all people need is just another person to look through outer appearances into their soul. We can all be that for eachother if we take the labels off and just get to know who's underneath. Some people won't let you see what's underneath because they are too busy hiding it. In my opinion, those people are in a worse position than Larry.

Larry preceded to tell me, very articulately, about his days in Vietnam and about the series of events that brought him to the streets of Dallas. After talking with him for a bit and seeing that he was as harmless as a grandpa, I asked "would you like to come into the air-conditioning?" (Some of you Safety Sams may be thinking... "what on earth were you thinking?" I don't know how to reassure you that the Spirit just gave me a sense of peace about the whole thing and I knew it was gonna be okay). Larry hesitated, "Are you sure its okay?", as if it had been a while since someone treated him with dignity. I'm sure it had been a while.

So he jumped in the passenger side and immediately the putrid smell from the rotten belongings he carried with him filled my car. I guess that's what sacrifice looks like sometimes... it pushes the envelope of our comfort zone a little...it doesn't always smell like roses. I think especially in the West, we have some glamorized view of service or philanthropy because we watch Hollywood make adopting foreign babies and raising AIDS awareness look sexy. Doing good in the world seems appealing as long as we look good doing it. But to truly be an agent of hope, we must come down off our high horses. You can't get to know people's stories when you are looking down at them... the perspective changes when you are eye to eye. So...in some small way I guess my sense of smell was my "cross to bear" today. It's the least I could offer.

We laughed and talked about Jesus. Larry seemed to have a more profound understanding of Grace than I do, and I hope our time was as encouraging to him as it was to me. He told me about his wife and about is regret in losing her to the alcoholism that ran his life for so many years before AA. He told me, "Yeah, man took the bottle and then the bottle took the man."
Larry and I talked about my story of Grace. I told him there was no reason that I'm not in his shoes or in the shoes of some orphan in Africa... the only reason I'm not is because of Grace. And even though I don't know what it's like to be homeless, I've been saved from my own depravity and that's just as much a testimony of God's goodness, mercy, and grace because even though the face of sin in my life looks different, the stain of sin was still the same.

I drove Larry downtown to The Bridge (a new shelter) and got him connected with a buddy who works with homeless folks down there. I only hope that Larry will pursue these resources....it's hard when people get to that level in life because as much as you wanna believe change for them, unless they start to believe it for themselves, the cycle will continue. Larry and I parted ways. He thanked me "for bringing hope into his life today." I started to cry and said "its the least I could do." I gave him what I had incase he needed to catch a bus or something. I plan on visiting him at The Bridge. I hope he will be there.

Unexpected Afternoon. Even more unexpected was the blessing that resulted. Life truly is worth living when it's not about us. I'm reminded of that today and I'm better for it. I share this story, not to toot some Good Samaritan horn and not to encourage everyone to visit their local homeless shelter (though it probably wouldn't hurt). But I share it because I was humbled today & lessons of humility are sometimes hard to come by. Thanks for reading.
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"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -Jim Elliot