1/28/2022 0 Comments HomelessnessLast night I watched a video from Tucker Carlson. He talked about how homelessness was destroying our cities and how the problem was growing. In his YouTube rant, he pointed fingers at the very programs I work with as a cause of the problem. How the help we are attempting to give is making things worse and not better. He spoke persuasively about how society is enabling people not to work and live in addiction and filth; and he is right. The streets are strewn with trash, the doorways reek of urine, and general feeling of being unsafe in the bigger cities is apparent and felt. Who hasn’t rushed by the homeless beggar for fear he would ask for something that we didn’t want to provide? We don’t need to wait for the zombie apocalypse, the emaciated tweakers that stare vacantly into traffic are today’s version of the walking dead. Some days there really doesn’t seem to be much of a point in helping any of them. Those days are the days when I feel the gentle tap on my shoulder and God reminds of how much value He puts on individuals. He isn’t asking me or anyone else I know to save everyone; He is simply asking me to go out and fight for the one in front of me. The one who has hit bottom and finally realize they are powerless to overcome their addiction. The one who has been mistreated for so long, they only know pain and fear and distrust. The one who truly wants better but has no idea how to get it. The one who left foster care after their 18th birthday and has no place else to go. These are the ones that are missed when people look at a tent city and see nothing but urban blight. Carlson is right, but there is more to the story than the ranting murderers who defecate on public sidewalks that he highlighted in his opinion piece. The homeless are people whom God loves and need help. Much of the time, the angry, smelly addict who blusters and rages, is a broken and beautiful soul who wants to be heard and loved. Is the problem of homelessness growing? Yes. Are the programs being used both help AND contribute to the problem? Yes, to that strange contradiction. Will I keep working until real change comes? Yes! I have realized that I can’t save them all. Heck, I can’t save a few, but God can. All I can do is work in the strength he gives me and look at the individual snapshot that is in front of me. I will let the complainers grouse about the big picture. I can’t fix what I ignore, and I can’t live in apathetic, moral superiority. The modern-day lepers that society discards because they are seen as disposable people of little value, are all known by God. If he values them simply because of their humanity, aren’t we called to do the same thing? The solution is out there, and it will require more than just grit and determination to find. Hope for more, faith for better, and a love that looks past dirt and sees into the eyes of the one in front of me will help. If the shepherd can leave the 99 to find the one, I can help the one He puts in my path.
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AuthorI am a Christian, a wife, a mom, and a part-time basket case who wants to be a full time writer.
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