I don't really know why I'm writing this. Maybe I just need to talk, maybe I want to vent and maybe I feel like there are really no words for what I want to say. If you would have told me 5 years ago that I would be brokenhearted and humbled by a homeless man named Troy, I might have believed you but it would have been because I would have assumed he had committed some crime or affected my life in any way but the one I am about to tell you about. Because aren't all homeless addicted and indigent men criminals? Embarrassing to even admit that's how I thought, but truly it is what I thought . You see that's the beauty of how God teaches me, and answers my cry to have Him break my heart for what breaks His. He answered with a love I cannot come close to explaining except for being Heaven sent, and ultimately Heaven bound.
About a year ago I was leaving Starbucks with my friend Terry G. and I saw a group of men looking disheveled and weary in the parking lot as I left. One of them shouted to me and asked if I could spare a dollar. I looked up from opening my car door and saw a man in his 40's, worn and weathered. I smiled and said I had no change.....but I had something better that I could offer! He looked at me puzzled and said "Really?" I laughed and asked him his name....He said his name was Troy. I told him I had Jesus and that although I had no money on me, I would love to pray with him if he would let me. He smiled this beaming smile and said "You know Jesus?!" He then told me his friend who was with him knew Jesus too and even had a Bible! He yelled to the other three men who were off to the side of the parking lot and asked them to come over, that I was going to pray and that they had to be there too. Along came the others and a dog who I later learned was named Raider belonging to the man named Jeff, who was the man who owned the Bible. By now Troy, Jeff, Raider, myself and the other two men are standing in the middle of the parking lot in a circle holding hands as I prayed for them. We must have been a sight for those driving through the parking lot! The smell of alcohol strongly lingering on their breath with every word as I asked them where they had been staying and talked to them for awhile before leaving. That was the first time in a long line of meetings with Troy and Jeff and his dog Raider. Every time I would see them the two men were together. I would stop, ask them how they were, ask if they or Raider needed anything and I would pray with them. Sometimes I would buy Troy food, he liked eggrolls from the little Chinese restaurant by the Kmart where they were most often. Jeff would never admit to needing anything.
I would talk to them a little more in depth every time, and they would open up more and more to me. I would pray with them for their needs and then as the Spirit led me I started praying for their addictions and struggles. I cannot explain the concern I started to have for them, the love I felt. I even started telling them how much I cared about them. I know it may not seem strange if you know me, I can be pretty demonstrative, but it's one thing to buy an eggroll and another to declare your concern and love! I would tell them that I cared about them and that I was praying for them when I was home...not just when I was with them. I wanted them to know that when I drove away, I was not forgetting them, that my love was real and they were not just a good deed to make me feel better about myself. I really loved them.
About two weeks ago I gave a new Bible to Jeff who had lost his on the streets...most likely taken or stolen. He was brokenhearted that he did not have one any longer so I gave him a new one that was donated by a friend. When I found the two of them that day I gave Jeff his new Bible and Troy jumped for joy! It was the sweetest thing that I had seen in a long time, Troy jumping for joy while Jeff cried in relief and gratitude. We all sat on the curb of the parking lot in between Kmart and the Dollar store and talked and prayed and hugged.....it was the first time Jeff had asked me for anything and it was a hug. Troy sat on the curb and read out of Luke to me, in his loud joyful voice he read Luke 17:1-2 As he read, I heard the Lord speak to me, and have not shared it with anyone....until now. As he began reading...
"Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It
would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone
tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves"
As he read the word "whom" he spelt it out "W..H..O..M" I helped him with the words as he struggled to read. He had told me before that he had only gone through school to the fourth grade. I remember standing up in front of him as he read "than to cause one of these little ones to stumble" and the weight of the words hit me like a ton of bricks directly in the heart. How many times had I caused one of these "little ones" to stumble? Walking by those in need and looking at them and thinking "Well they got themselves there, they can get themselves out!" or acting like I didn't see them at all when they were standing in the intersection with a sign, or even worse, thinking I was glad I was in a car so if they approached I could drive away! I understand there are a lot of things involved, and it is not always safe to just go hugging every homeless person you see, but woe to those through whom the stumbling comes. I felt like God was saying to me..."Love with My love, don't turn a blind eye, don't walk away when you feel me prompt you to speak my love and truth, don't be afraid to look like a fool or be rejected, trust me and just love obediently! Just look at Troy, My little one. Love him with My love and trust Me with what happens next!" I heard and felt the Lord so clearly...and as Troy finished reading he looked up at me and said "I know this is the word of God, you know why? cuz I can feel its power!"
So childlike and so excited he hugged me with a bearhug and as he hugged me I prayed a prayer in his ear and I told him I loved him. I hugged Jeff and did the same, and as I drove away they were reading the Bible on the curb as I watched in my rear view mirror. That was the last time I saw Troy.
Last week I found out that there was a body of a transient found dead behind a building close to where they usually hang out. It was Troy. He died in a sleeping bag, alone, behind a store building. He died of cancer and had been bleeding internally for days. My heart aches for Jeff now left without a constant friend on the street, but I pray maybe he will seek help because of it. I am working on that and encouraging him to try rehab or someplace like the Mission again. But I made it very clear to him that if he chooses to stay on the streets that I am still going to love him, pray with him, laugh with him and care for him. His struggles and choices will not change my love for him. Mine never changed God's love for me, so why should Jeff's change my love for him. And although my heart is broken missing Troy it is also joyful knowing he is free, finally free. He and I had talked many times about his growing up in an abusive home, his being on the street since the age of fourteen, and the things that caused him to be on the street. Joyfully in "Troy style" he told me Jesus was his Lord and Savior, he was a "believer" as he would say proudly. I know Jesus loved Troy because of the love He gave me for Troy, it did not come from anything I could muster up on my own. It was and is straight from God!
I am forever changed because of Troy and Jeff, I am learning what real love looks like. It is more than this heart can take and still it leaves me wanting more of it.
I urge you to love without boundaries, don't let anything hinder the love God has given you to pour out on others. Let your heart be broken for what breaks His, I even dare you to ask Him to break your heart for what breaks His! You wont regret it and it could mean that you love in a way that changes a life forever....and it might even be yours!
"The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin."
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin."