I have been sick lately and so I have not been able to be down at the DDC as much as I'd like to be, I do not want to spread my illness around. Especially in a shelter, as when you get sick in there, everyone gets it, and many are more succeptable to illness as many are not able to have the food or medicine needed to battle illness and keep a heatly immune system. In this, I have had some downtime, some have said that it was much needed since I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends, but that's just the way I roll. In this time I have had time to reflect and ponder on why I do what I do.
I keep on having this past story coming into my head, and was brought to the front by a brother of mine who said, 'I love God, and I keep on hoping that He gives me a moment where I can share His love and grace, but it just doesn't happen. I just hope that someone asks me why is my daily devotion where it is, and I get that moment, that chance.' I told him of a personal tale of mine, one that has seemed to been brought forward more and more lately. So, here it is.
Living homeless, there is one thing more than anything else that rips your soul to shreds, makes you feel less than human, makes you feel alone and isolated to a point where you feel like you have been swallowed by a black hole, only catching erratic glimpses of the world you once knew. It is when people stop seeing you, they look through you, refusing to acknowledge your existence and even share a smile or a simple 'hello'. You have become the forgotten. In that it is a dark world within a dark world, you become a shadow of yourself.
I had become that, I had been living at the 410, a homeless shelter for women and children at the intersection of 4th and 10th in Minneapolis. I was in a world that it seemed God had walked away and forgotten us, a world of pain. In the span of an average week I would see hookers and pimps, drug deals and junkies, gangbangers and thugs, and more than my share of assaults and murders, all for things that did not seem worth a life. My first murder I ever witnessed was a man stab another man to death over a bottle of beer, a 40oz. beer, for $1.19 a man lost his life. I had had enough, I had seen what the world had to offer and I wanted off of the ride. So I had dedcided to end it all.
I lived on the top floor, I would look out every night to the park where there waxs always some type of pain or suffering, some type of evil lurking, and that night I had decided, one more day, and then I was going to toss myself out of my window, and this life of pain would be over. I was told by my social worker when I first hit the streets, 'either get tough or die kid', those were his words of advice, and I no longer felt tough enough.
I woke up that day, feeling great, my pain was coming to an end, it would all be over soon. I was going to have one last day, and was going to top it off right. I got ready, got showered and dressed, and headed down to the street for one last day of panhandling, I was 14 so I was not legal to get a job yet. As I stepped onto the street I was met by a parade of city school busses. They would weave their way through the city, picking up kids to drop them at various spots all over the city. I had never wanted to be on a school bus so much. I stared at the vacant faces of children daydreaming, wishing they were anywhere else but on that bus. I watched as bus after bus passed me by, staring into vacant eyes, just wishing and wondering. Where were they going? What was their family like? Then it happened.
On one of the last busses there sat a little black girl, her hair was neatly braided and she had a yellow shirt on, she looked at me, and she smiled and waved. That's all it took, just a smile and a wave. She had seen me, and not looked at me with disdain or disgust, she saw another kid, and just wanted to say hi. I decided not to jump because of that. I owe her my life.
My point, You may never know when you effect someone's life, I will never be able to tell her what she did that day, how her simple gesture saved my life. I will never be able to remember the bus number, what was printed on the side of that bus, or in any way know where that bus was headed. She will probably never know that due to her simple compassion she saved a life. She performed the greatest gift that anyone could ever give. So when you think or wonder if God will ever bring someone to you so you can share His love, He may have already done that, and you may just have not been aware of how profoundly one small action of yours has changed someone's life. So to the little black girl with braids in her hair and a yellow shirt who saw another human being and smiled and waved. Thank You For Saving My Life.
I love each and everyone of you and God does too. LLLAKYFOTPA
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