That's very sad. I can relate since I was homeless for a short while when I returned to Alaska in 2013, though not as dramatic a story.
That's a good quote for homelessness. Jesus wept.
He also was homeless much of the time the last three years during His ministry.
An unfriendly family member would not let me stay on the farm where I grew up, and where my brothers invited me. So, I went into the city and stayed at the Rescue Mission. It was summer, and it is typically not hot in Alaska in the summer, but, the guy who knew how to run the furnace/air-conditioning was gone. So it was so hot in a cramped room with bunks and maybe 40 guys. I woke up one night and the person in the bunk next to me was staring at me-- really freaked me out. And the nerves in my spine were pinched, and so lying flat on the hard bunks caused my legs to go numb. One night it as so hot, I just walked out and looked for a place to sleep. I walked over to a lake and tried to sleep on a park bench, but, I started to worry about bears. Then i walked over to the university by the hospital and was looking for a spot in an island of trees, but I got spooked. It just felt weird. So I think I went back to the bus stop bench and waited for morning when McDonalds opened at 6:00AM. Many homeless people would hang out there when the shelter made them leave at 6:00 AM. Then they would take the bus, if they had bus fare, over to the state job center that opened at 8:00, and then walk over to the library at 9:00 or 10:00AM.
HOmeless shelters and soup kitchens can be unusual, sometimes frightening places. There can be people there who are on the edge of reality, the edge of sanity, the edge of addiction, the edge of society, or over the edge of society, and they don't want to return. There can be some frightening spiritual vibes going on too. In the past, I haven't been strong enough to minister to these people, although I have tried with music as one way, which the appreciated very much, but I wasn't able to teach the Bible, but I believe I can now. I called many churches asking them to help me, and my ex-wife, but she just said it would trigger her depression.
One church came through though-- a church showed up for a Martin Luther King Jr. remembrance I organized. I as very grateful and amazed, and will never forget the powerful look of confirmation the pastor's wife gave me when she saw I was very stressed out--a white guy trying to organize a Martin Luther King Jr. event. But, it was successful. It doesn't matter how weak we may be, or how many challenges we may have in our lives, the Lord said, "My strength is perfected in human weakness." It is HIS power that makes these things real.
So, someone at a church gave me a car. No one could start it. A Ford Taurus, the first generation traditional ones. I parked it on my brother's farm and slept in it, which was much better than the city. And kept trying to work on it. One night I was walking back to the farm, and it was so dark, you couldn't see anything, but you could hear the moose grazing along the road, just yards away-- i was scared to death! One time a police officer who patroled the mountain gave me a ride.
I went back into the city and told the the pastor at the Rescue Mission I had prayed for the car to start. Then my brother and I were working on it one day. I copied some diagrams off the internet and tried hooking up a new coil. I hooked it up wrong, and it heated up and blew up! So i put on another coil and still no spark. Even the mechanic who worked on it couldn't get it to start. But, he left some pins in some wires, which is a mechanics trick to test a live wire by hooking up a volt-meter to it. This gave me an idea. So, I tried two things: I scraped the rust off the coil grounding mounts to make sure it was grounded (negative ground--electrical term), and then tried hot-wiring the computer by putting a jumper-wire to the red wire running into the computer. The car fired!
We then actually got it started, which was truly amazing! Then I was thinking negative things like, it probably uses too much gas to make any money delivering pizza's. But, I drove to Anchorage, and applied at a pizza place. To be honest, I was a bit spaced-out. But the routine of the job helped get my mind working again. I was still sleeping in my car, and after working, I would take my $100 or $120 cash and I would go to Denny's to eat. I always ordered chicken strips and a diet coke and the late night waitress got to know me. I kind of started to like her, and one day left a card for her--there's a story there. But, I would park the car along a street near Home Depot every night, until I was able to get housing assistance. It is very difficult to find a place to park your car to sleep in a city-- any city. But, then the stress from the job started to get to me. And the car, because it was hot-wired, was not running correctly. When the temperature would reach a certain temperature, the engine would just quit. I would start off with a couple orders, and, in summer, I would watch the temperature gauge rise, trying desperately to keep the engine cool. I would turn on the heater fan, and try to keep up the speed to keep the air flow going, knowing that if the temperature guage came up past a certain point, the engine would just quit and I would lose the order and risk being fired. It as a lot of stress. The 30's latino cook/manager was adorable. We worked together during the day. She was just so genuine and real, and such a hard worker. But those pizza places tend to work people to the limit. I have never seen anyone work so hard, and they said she was lazy. And she was terrified of street people. When someone would come in to order, i would wait and make sure she was ok before I left, since she was so small. She seemed to like working with me for some reason, maybe because I was a gentleman, even though I was older, and felt i was unattractive. Things weren't working out well with her male roommate, and it actually crossed my mind-- what would it be like to ask her out? But, I just felt, "she's just too real--too genuine; I just couldn't live up to that. I wouldn't know how to deal with that." It's a rare, powerful gift, especially with women, to be like that. I have a brother who is like that also. These rare, incredibly real people, are an honor to be around. Many times, I feel so shallow in their presence, even though I have powerful divine gifts. Paul says theirs is greater. The simple, powerful genuine presence of just being real.
It's amazing how some people just touch your lives. And there was actually some compatibility-- she didn't like to be around a lot of people, and I was like that also back then.
Anyway that's my story of starting to fall for a latino princess--One of the reasons I left was that I was starting to fall in love with her. Besides that I had a mental health meltdown from the stress of the job.
And how I resisted the friendship thinking I was unworthy, even though she felt I was much more worthy than most of the dudes around there. I eventually tried to match her up with the young Puerto Rican counselor male social worker who was trying to help me, but they never met, and he married another young lady. He was/is a very charismatic young man, and we hit it off very well. I reminded him of his father that he had had a falling out with, and eventually I believe it helped him to reconcile his memory, or maybe his relationship with his father. He teared up a few times, thinking of his father. I don't know why my life touched him in such a way, and everyone loved the charismatic young man. It's the power of God! Working through people. It's quite a rare gift to have a social gift like that. You can touch so many lives. I'd like to think that he saw Jesus in my life somehow and has, or will become a Christian.
But, at the pizza place, I think I kind of freaked out a few people, trying to reach them with the Gospel when i left, and saying that the end of the world was near. That's usually not the best way to reach people-- they are more drawn by the love of Christ, than by the fears of the end of the world. But, pastors say we have a duty as Christians to reach out to people we have friendships with through jobs or other ways.
But, to finish with the waitresses. One day, I decided to leave a card for the nice server. Sort of asking her out to A&W for a root beer.
She never showed up. But, the thing is, the card had a cup of coffee on it. The other server, a young lady, who I eventually believed was the same one who was a family friend, who I knew quite well, was the one who brought me coffee. The other one, brought me soft drinks. The one I actually loved from childhood, and knew, would have received the card, that was for someone else.
Now that's just crazy...
How would I ever explain that one? "Well, I actually love YOU, but, I didn't know it was you, so i left a card for your co-worker."
She actually sort of asked me to marry her in a round-a-bout way once. She came to see me on the farm and said, "so, why aren't you married?" I just made some lame, spaced-out excuse, too timid to take her up on her offer. But, i still love her to this day.
And another friend of the family--[name} who, when we were in Jr. High, would patiently lounge around the house watching me build my card-house towers-- and then walk in and without hesitation or remorse, demolish them! I was so enraged, but I love her to this day for that!
I guess this is about relationships that just slipped away and never came to be....
So, where is home?
I see that this never got posted. I was sort of had a couple wines, and a lot of rambling, but... think I'll post it anyway-- I believe it all relates to being homeless--
This song has an answer:
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