"And I said to him, all you've got in there is trash, man, let it go".
That's what Jeff, a compassionate and passionate outreach worker from DC Central Kitchen's First Helping program told us as he recounted his previous day's encounters with the homeless population on our way to our first stop of the day to take breakfast to the homeless men and women of South Capitol street in SE DC. Jeff had tried to take a man to a mental health and housing program the previous day, but had been unsuccessful because the man had refused to give up his several bags of trash. Jeff was hopeful, though. The man who he was working with used to be completely unreceptive to the idea of mental health care in general. He is finally willing to give it a try, and hopefully soon he will be willing to part with his bags of trash.
I'm learning a lot about the homeless population through my volunteer work with DC Central Kitchen. I never realized that the bags that I often saw men and women who live on the street carrying are often times filled with nothing but trash. In an effort to satisfy the human desire to own something, and have control of something, this population sometimes sorts through garbage cans in order to have some semblance of ownership and control over something around them.
As I sat listening to Jeff's story my first reaction was "How silly! This man has bags of trash that are holding him back from something real. Something better..." But before this thought had finished crossing my mind, God, in His infinite mercy, reminded me how often I hold onto my bags of control, guilt, judgement, cynicism, consumerism...instead of giving them up to Him for something much more real and much, much better.
The last couple of weeks have been really hard on me. I've seen the brokenness of this world in more ways than I care too, and my heart continues to break in sorrow and longing for a new world. This pain inside of me is hard to express, and often I find myself crying out...I'm afraid that my heart is too soft to feel such hurt...but in this I draw away from the people around me, from Luke, from my small group, from God...
This is the situation I found myself in on Monday night, before heading off to pull another 12 hour shift at Polaris. But Luke came home and we headed to small group nonetheless. Needless to say I was not excited to be put into a vulnerable situation when all I wanted to do was remain curled up in a ball by myself unwilling to be touched (yes, contradicting my personality in every way...). I was even more upset when we got there and realized that it was our monthly "Prayer and Praise" small group. Great...just one more possibility to be thrust into sharing what I haven't expressed to anybody yet...
But we opened up with Psalm 13...which spoke directly to my heart. And while my sore throat and cough made it hard to sing, I listened, which was almost better. And when it was time to pray I found myself oddly opening up to these women who I haven't really opened up much to before, and I heard them pray into my situation like I have never heard anybody pray before...
Yesterday I was journaling and I realized that I was feeling, simultaneously, something I haven't felt in a long time. I felt overwhelming sorrow in the situation of the world but at the same time overwhelming peace and joy in God. And I realized how true these words from Psalm 13 are for me right now:
That's what Jeff, a compassionate and passionate outreach worker from DC Central Kitchen's First Helping program told us as he recounted his previous day's encounters with the homeless population on our way to our first stop of the day to take breakfast to the homeless men and women of South Capitol street in SE DC. Jeff had tried to take a man to a mental health and housing program the previous day, but had been unsuccessful because the man had refused to give up his several bags of trash. Jeff was hopeful, though. The man who he was working with used to be completely unreceptive to the idea of mental health care in general. He is finally willing to give it a try, and hopefully soon he will be willing to part with his bags of trash.
I'm learning a lot about the homeless population through my volunteer work with DC Central Kitchen. I never realized that the bags that I often saw men and women who live on the street carrying are often times filled with nothing but trash. In an effort to satisfy the human desire to own something, and have control of something, this population sometimes sorts through garbage cans in order to have some semblance of ownership and control over something around them.
As I sat listening to Jeff's story my first reaction was "How silly! This man has bags of trash that are holding him back from something real. Something better..." But before this thought had finished crossing my mind, God, in His infinite mercy, reminded me how often I hold onto my bags of control, guilt, judgement, cynicism, consumerism...instead of giving them up to Him for something much more real and much, much better.
The last couple of weeks have been really hard on me. I've seen the brokenness of this world in more ways than I care too, and my heart continues to break in sorrow and longing for a new world. This pain inside of me is hard to express, and often I find myself crying out...I'm afraid that my heart is too soft to feel such hurt...but in this I draw away from the people around me, from Luke, from my small group, from God...
This is the situation I found myself in on Monday night, before heading off to pull another 12 hour shift at Polaris. But Luke came home and we headed to small group nonetheless. Needless to say I was not excited to be put into a vulnerable situation when all I wanted to do was remain curled up in a ball by myself unwilling to be touched (yes, contradicting my personality in every way...). I was even more upset when we got there and realized that it was our monthly "Prayer and Praise" small group. Great...just one more possibility to be thrust into sharing what I haven't expressed to anybody yet...
But we opened up with Psalm 13...which spoke directly to my heart. And while my sore throat and cough made it hard to sing, I listened, which was almost better. And when it was time to pray I found myself oddly opening up to these women who I haven't really opened up much to before, and I heard them pray into my situation like I have never heard anybody pray before...
Yesterday I was journaling and I realized that I was feeling, simultaneously, something I haven't felt in a long time. I felt overwhelming sorrow in the situation of the world but at the same time overwhelming peace and joy in God. And I realized how true these words from Psalm 13 are for me right now:
...How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?...
...But I trust in Your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in Your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD for He has been good to me.
Sometimes I feel like the only way I can engage with the world is to grasp tightly onto my bags of judgement, guilt, cynicism and control. I pile them up like a wall around my heart, not letting anyone take them away, like they are offering some kind of protection. But God calls us to something else. He asks me to give up these bags of trash that I think are guarding my heart and give them to Him instead. And the protection that He can offer me are walls of unfailing love, walls of salvation and walls of goodness. Not bags, that really offer no protection at all, but walls of strength...
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