It matters....

I've been in this weird, distant, confused, state lately and I'm hoping it works itself out soon. It's like I'm really still even though physically I've been really busy. I'm not moving forward and I'm not moving backwards....I'm just stuck in pause though everything around me is still in play.

We have a friend that wrecked his truck that he worked out of and didn't have insurance so we gave him our truck to use to get back on his feet. That's what you do; when a friend is in need you step up and help out. In doing this, it has prevented us from going to the streets for a while. I think that has contributed to my pause mode. I miss it. I miss our friends. I drive through down town everyday going home and I purposely drive down the streets we are accustomed to visiting in hopes of seeing some of our friends. I have ran into a few but it's just not the same.

I did have a truly in your face "this is so much a part of the bigger picture moment" a few weeks ago. It was Memorial weekend to be exact. My phone rang and I'm not one to answer the phone when it's a number I don't know. Well it was a number I didn't know so I didn't answer it. A few seconds later a different number I didn't know called. Something in my gut told me to answer and it was our friend DiAngelo on the other end. We met DiAngelo about 2 years ago and I fell in love with him the first time I met him. We first met at Austin St shelter when Scottie and I had made friends with the guys who ran the door and they let us come in. We were passing out little pieces of paper that had bible verses on them and DiAngelo came up to me and asked if I would pray for him. He was the first person that had every come up to me and asked for prayer. He told me he had a problem with cocaine and he wanted me to pray for him. He wanted me to pray for the money he was going to get paid that Friday because he knew where he would spend it. So we prayed and there was a connection from that point on. Months would go by before I saw him again and each time we were out he would try to hide from us so I wouldn't see him....because he was high. Every time I would find him and go up to him and ask about his dad and his mom because that's what we would always talk about. And sometimes I knew he was high but I didn't care. My job wasn't to fix him but to love him....unconditionally....in his condition. And I did.

So DiAngelo was on the other end of the phone and he has had our phone number for over a year and a half and has never once called us. I said "hey what's up, how are you?" and he had called to let us know that his dad had passed away. He thought to call us. Because all the times we crossed paths that's what we talked about....his dad. We would talk about how his heart was doing, when he was going to dialysis, the last time they went fishing and on and on.....and it mattered. Out of all the people that run through your mind when your heart is breaking....he thought to call us.....that mattered....to me.

It was like I was in pause and God decided to push rewind and play at the same time. Like God saying, remember when you did this...it mattered. I put you there for a reason. Even though it seemed insignificant at the time....it mattered.

He wanted us to come and meet his family. His mom, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews....his family. So we did. We went to his momma's house and met his family. We walked in and the first thing I did was hug his momma and ask how she was doing. Little did I know at the time but that made a huge impact on her as well. DiAngelo later informed me that his momma wasn't very fond of white people and the fact that we drove all that way to support her family and hug her neck all because of the love we have for her son meant a lot to her. Again...it mattered. Even huggin his momma was a part of the bigger picture

Even beyond that God's hand was all over this picture. He used a wheelchair that was once DiAngelo's dad's to fulfill a need of a homeless man that needed a new wheelchair the very next day. I won't go into that story now....but it was beautiful.

I love how you can see beauty and truth in ugly things. I love how you can see God's perfection in an imperfect world. I love how God allows us to see....if we would only allow ourselves to look.

DiAngelo

This was the last time we saw DiAngelo on the streets....and he was high. He tried to avoid me like the black plague but I spotted him and called him out on hiding from me. We prayed that day.....he's been clean since this day. Keep him in your prayers.

Britney and Scottie

Compassion...

ZZ

Joel Olsteen:

Certainly, when God created us, He put His supernatural love in all of our hearts. He's placed in you the potential to have a kind, caring, gentle, loving spirit. Because you are created in God's image, you have the moral capacity to experience God's compassion in your heart.

This is a beautiful idea. This is a beautiful truth.

"...you have the moral capacity to experience God's compassion in your heart."

Beautiful.

Now, if I may, I'm going to reword this sentence to give you a different perspective.

Because you are created in God's image, you have the moral capacity to experience God's heartache.

com·pas·sion
–noun

1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.


Can you truly imagine having the moral capacity to experience God's compassion? I mean really; can you imagine God's heartache. Would you even want to? It's in the fibers of our being to experience this compassion. That feeling in your stomach when you stop and acknowledge the world just isn't right. When kids around the world are dying of hunger; there's heartache. When you're given free will and you deny your maker; there's heartache. When you walk by someone in need without giving it a second thought; there's heartache.

Can you imagine having a bad day and you just want to go home and get away from it all?

And this is where you lay your head at night to get rest. There's heartache.

Can you imagine the trials you would face daily if you were homeless and almost blind. If almost twenty years ago someone broke into your home and beat you to a bloody pulp leaving you for dead. They beat your face in so badly that the neighbor that found you could hardly recognize you and it leaves you blind in one eye. But no worries, you get social security and disability that's just enough to not afford to live in your own home. Do you have compassion?

Donny Sockwell

Can you imagine being diabetic since the age of 15 and now you're 32, homeless and six months ago you had to have your leg amputated because of your diabetes? You used to live with your cousin and her 3 teenagers in a small home and she passed away last week due to complications from a hysterectomy. Now you sleep on the streets as you wait your turn on the list for housing. Compassionate yet? Feeling any heartache?

Alicia

Can you imagine shopping for your clothes out of the back of a truck?

And be thankful for it.

Can you imagine the drugs controlling you when you used to say you had control?

Can you imagine a world without compassion? A world filled with people that have compassion running through their veins that are just to busy. Hard to imagine huh?

Can you imagine a man coming to realize how good God is to him and he sees all the grace and mercy that God is pouring down on him and he struggles with that new found reality and the world that surrounds him? Being torn between the two worlds. What he's known and what he now sees. And when you look into his eyes you can see in his soul that he desperately wants to see more of what he's seen. He wants to understand. He acknowledges this powerful force in his life. He's totally freaked out by God's presence. And it's a good, beautiful thing.

Compassion is a good thing but it's married to heartache.

Rob Bell puts it like this in his book Sex God:

"The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying "Me Too." This can transform our experience of heartbreak. Instead of being something that distances us from God, causing us to question, " Where are you?".........This is the God that holds out his hands and asks, "Would you like to see the holes where the nails went? Would that help?" It's the place we find out we're not alone, where we find the strength to go on. Not a strength that comes from within ourselves but a strength that comes from God. The God who keeps going. Who keeps offering. Who keeps loving. Who keeps risking."

Will you risk heartache to be compassionate?

Will you risk being compassionate to experience what God made you to be?

Just a thought.

Britney & Scottie

New Year......

Well it's a new year and I will try to post more often than every 3 months. Sorry for such a gap. We've still been going to the streets but we have been crazy busy. The Lord has blessed us abundantly this past year and has kept us pretty busy. We got a new home that we've been working on and Scottie and I both started new jobs at the begining of January.

So again, I apologize for not posting and this year I will try to do better.

Britney and Scottie