Homeless

October 16, 2019

What is it like to be homeless? I’ve never been in that situation, but I could hear the panic in her voice as she pleaded with me to help her. She was locked out of the room we had procured for her at a cheap motel. Individuals from the church had provided the cash for the past couple weeks, but we can’t keep it up, and I don’t think she’s capable of managing on her own. There’s a lot about the situation that doesn’t add up, including a family in the area that isn’t lifting a finger to help. Why, we haven’t been able to figure out. There’s more to the story than we are getting.

But there’s no getting by her panic and the desperate circumstances in which she finds herself. Homeless in the summer might be manageable; this time of year is another story. 

After arranging for another couple nights at the motel, I was riding home with my friend Harry. He had kindly offered to take me to the motel to make arrangements on the way home from band instead of my going all the way home and all the way back to Dunkirk. It was out of his way, but that’s the kind of friend he is. We got to talking. If my mother were destitute, there’s no way I’d let her fend for herself on the streets. If I were destitute, my children would step in, and if they were unable, I have a network of friends who would be there for me. How does someone live more than fifty years and have no one who will come to their aid? Yet that is the reality for countless people who for one reason or another never built a network of family and friends on whom they can lean in time of need.

In the fellowship of the cross there is a family for the lonely. The Bible says “God sets the solitary in families” (Ps. 68:6). In Christ we are alone no more.

I am grateful tonight that I’ve never been that destitute, and I’m thankful that if I were, I am surrounded by people who would make sure I had a place to lay my head at night. And I pray for this woman, and for those who are alone tonight without a home.