Tonight I Met Jesus

 

Tonight I met Jesus when Dan and I fed and housed maybe the first truly homeless man I’ve ever met.  I’ve always tried to feed the hungry when I could.  We’ve opened our home to those who had no place to stay for short periods of time.  But we always knew there was hope for housing for anyone who stayed with us.

Tonight I met a new Daniel.  There’s so much I learned about him during our brief encounter with him.  In any other time, he would be housed in a home for the mentally ill.  His whole life has been troubled…on psychiatric drugs as a child…on Social Security disability only if he stayed on his prescribed drugs…drugs he said did nothing but make him confused and disabled.  He truly doesn’t understand that he suffers from mental illness. He has an "invisible" friend (or is hallucinating).  He wants to be “accepted”.  He wants to work and take care of a house and be left alone by a world of people he feels are out to just destroy him and make life and living impossible – because that’s been his experience with people.  He’s broken.  His pants literally fell from his frame because he’d gone without food for so long.  When he is given food, he tries to share it with others, believing that’s what he’s supposed to do. 

I’m a little in shock because of this encounter.  I listened to Daniel share tonight and realized that one left turn when I went right, or vice versa, and my life could have been Daniel’s life.  I could be that broken life.  I could have walked the roads not knowing where my next meal would come from…where I could lay my head at night and not live in fear that what few earthly belongings I had would be stolen.  I could be huddled on a porch…or under a stairwell or handicapped ramp…trying to escape the rain or snow or wind on a chilly night.

 Tonight Daniel sleeps in a warm bed in a hotel because a loving church wanted to help.  He carries a new backpack full of warm socks and an extra blanket…a thermos of hot chocolate…some cheese, meat and bread…dropped off by a stranger who crossed Daniel’s path today and said, “I’m doing this because Jesus wants me to do this.”

Tonight I helped the “least of these”, and my encounter with Jesus has me in tears.  What have we done in losing compassion for the broken and needy because of the lazy and liars who have abused godly hearts?  

“Change my heart, Oh God!  Make it ever true!  Change my heart, Oh God!  May I be like you!”