Saturday, September 19, 2009

Two friends

I was on my way downtown to pick up Bob, my friend who has 18 months clean. I first met Bob at Mt. Airy shelter, where he ended up homeless after years of using drugs and drinking. When I took him to church he said he felt like he was home, and started on his road to sobriety. After many false starts, he finally made it. But when I talked to him on the phone, he told me he was very frustrated trying to find a job. He had no money but was grateful that he had a place to stay and some food stamps to keep him from starving. He tries to help others as much as he can, but feels he doesn’t have much to give. His spirits are always lifted by going to church, so I told him I’d pick him up.
I was driving down Liberty Street on the way to pick Bob up, when an ambulance approached with its siren blaring. I pulled over to the side of the road. There I saw my friend Mario. Mario has lived all his life in OTR, and spent much of his life using drugs and robbing people to support his habit. With a lot of help from God, he’d begun to pull his life back together. He was able to get off drugs, he was helping the minister that came down there on weekends, he’d gotten a part time job, and he got his kids back. Life was tough, but God always gave him everything he needed for the day, and he made it through.
When I pulled over, Mario ran to the car and exclaimed how glad he was to see me and how God had just had perfect timing. He hopped in the car and explained how his job had cut back on his hours and he was desperate for help to feed his kids. Hearing this cut into my heart, as I was experiencing some major financial problems myself, so I didn’t know how I was going to help him. He moaned that he was doing everything he could but now he was getting desperate. He was starting to get some of the old thoughts into his head, and said he was about to do something stupid. I knew he meant he was headed to steal something or rob someone. We talked about how maybe he was relying on his own strength to get things done, and maybe he should rely on God. After all, God can arrange circumstances, and bring the right people into our lives. Mario admitted that he had been relying on himself, and said he was going to try to trust God to take care of the situation.
We pulled up to pick up Bob, and I introduced them to each other. Mario was too preoccupied with his situation to say much of anything to Bob. He kept talking to me about how helpless he felt trying to get some food to feed his kids. As we turned the corner, Bob said, “Pull into this Kroger’s here.” I was surprised, but did as he asked. We parked and Bob got out and told Mario to go with him into the store, and that he was going to get him some groceries. I was shocked, knowing how little Bob had, and Mario didn’t know what to say. I just followed them into the store. Bob grabbed a cart and started down the bread aisle. Mario asked if he could get a loaf of bread, and Bob said, “No let’s get a couple of loaves.” He asked him if he liked this or that, and Mario would sheepishly nod his head. Whenever I get people groceries, I usually get the bare minimum – ramen noodles, bread and bologna. Nothing expensive – just the basics to get them through. So I was flabbergasted when we got to the meat aisle, and Bob started suggesting some of this chicken, and how about some of those steaks? Bob ended up getting him a weeks worth of groceries and using a large part of his food stamps.
We dropped Mario off at his home, and Mario had tears in his eyes. Here was a man that he had never met before, doing all this for him - Someone that had almost nothing, but what little he had he shared. The two shook hands and gave each other a little side hug, both saying “God bless you.” Bob and I headed off to church, and I asked him what he was going to do for food now. He said he’d make it, but said it was worth it for the feeling he had now, having been able to help someone. He said it was what Jesus would have done.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Charles

Sometimes when I’m down at Washington Park, the people there are concerned about me, and warn me about reprobates that hang around that they consider dangerous. They’ll tell me, “Stay away from so-and-so. He’s bad news.” When I hear that, I may be a little cautious, but I realize that means that ‘so-and-so’ needs God even more than most. I learned that from Charles.
I was in the park with the church during the “Good Sam Run”. The others from the church were busy handing out sandwiches, so I just stood to the side and asked God to bring me someone that I could minister to. Then I noticed a man standing with his friends nearby. He was very rough looking, with a mean expression on his face. He had only one eye, without a patch on the ‘bad’ one, so it just hung in his socket like a white ball of mucous. He had not shaven and had a rough beard. His dingy pants were held up by ragged suspenders over his grimy t-shirt and his huge belly hung out over his pants.
He approached me and demanded roughly, “What are you doing down here?” I told him I was with the church, and that I was here to pray for him if he wanted me to. He grunted and walked away. After a moment he hesitated and then turned and walked back toward me. “Yeh- I guess I could use some prayer,” he said nonchalantly, almost as if he were mocking me. I smiled and took his hands, and asked if there was anything special he needed prayer for. “Nah” he replied. “Just some prayer I guess.”
I asked his name and he told me “Charles.” I closed my eyes and began to pray with Charles. At one point I felt compelled to say, “Jesus wants you to know that he loves you very much, Charles, and that all your sins are forgiven.” As I ended the prayer, I looked up. I was surprised to see tears rolling over his cheek. He had a look of surprise and gratitude. He told me he had been praying and praying for forgiveness the last few months, but had not felt it until now. He had prayed with ministers and had said the sinner’s prayer many times. “But,” he said, “this is the first time I have really felt forgiven.” He said it was a huge weight lifted off him, and then he began to tell me his story. He had been involved in almost every sin imaginable. He had killed people in drug deals, and he had people killed. He had been a pimp and produced porn movies. He had robbed and stolen and lied. He had lost his eye in one of the drug deals gone wrong. He was considered a big dealer, and always had plenty of money, so he could buy almost anything he wanted.
Then he found out he had stomach cancer, but it was so far advanced that the doctors couldn’t do anything for him. He knew he didn’t have much time left and for the first time in his life, he began to fear death. And for the first time, he began to regret the things he had done in his life. And the more he reviewed his life, the more he knew he could never be forgiven. He prayed, but God didn’t seem to be listening, and he felt he had probably been disowned by God. He didn’t blame him. And he was scared of what lay ahead for him. He had been praying almost constantly for the last few months since he found out, and he’d turned away from selling drugs, his income at the time. All of his ‘friends’ had deserted him when the money ran out. He began ‘flying a sign’ on the side of the road to support himself. And now here he was in the food line to get sandwiches, and sleeping on the side of a vacant building.
All that time, he knew that God wasn’t going to have anything to do with him….. until we prayed. He said he felt like love had consumed his heart. He knew Jesus was with him, finally. Everything was going to be ok, and he no longer had to be afraid of dying. I could see that his expression had changed from bitterness to joy.
I saw Charles a few times after that down at the park, but within about three weeks he died. But during those three weeks, he had been telling everyone he knew about this amazing Jesus. People came to tell me they were amazed at the change in Charles. He was happy, and was helping people and was always talking about Jesus. One of my friends at the park remarked, “I thought I told you to stay away from him.” He was one of those people they had considered dangerous and irredeemable. But God had nudged him to come pray, and God knew that was exactly what Charles needed at that moment.