Digging a Little Deeper

During my formative adult years, a friend/mentor came into my life for a time and influenced me more than I ever think she will know. She is a couple years older than me. When I met her, I saw her as cool, on fire for God and always down to have a good time. Besides the fact that we wasted countless work hours chatting it up (and drinking red bull!), those hours could arguably not be considered wasted...they were teaching me, shaping me into the person I would become. That girl taught me to pray like I never knew how, to believe with all my might and to love with every ounce of my being. 

I remember being on a work trip with her in Chicago. Every single homeless person we saw, she stopped and gave money to. I was flabbergasted and asked her about it. She told me it wasn't up to us to judge the person's heart, but to help how we could. To this day that has changed me. But it has changed me in more than just words. The actions I have done because of those words have changed me. I remember giving my leftovers to a guy in Santa Monica and him opening it and eating it with his hands. It was pasta. I literally started to cry. The guy was starving with thousands of people walking in front of him and not even caring. 

More recently, I bought a guy a sandwich at McDonalds after asking him if he was hungry. Again, he wasted no time eating it. And again, my heart broke. Both these instances involve food. You see, the hubby doesn't like me giving away money. Do I still do it from time to time? Yes. but when possible, I do try to meet the need. 

A lot of the time there are homeless people hanging out by the grocery store I shop at. I have given them food before. A few days ago, I needed to run to the store and pick something up. On the way in, I noticed a homeless man sitting off to the side, so I picked up some bananas for him. When I left, I ran over and gave him the bananas and talked to him for a second. And honestly, when I got closer to him I couldn't tell if he was homeless or not, but after offering him the bananas, I couldn't back out of it. When I was driving away, I noticed he was eating one and that reassured me. But the scenario can't escape my mind of his daughter or someone coming out of the store and discovering him eating bananas and wondering how the hell he got them! Oh well. Even if he wasn't homeless or lacking food, at least he got a snack!

And as embarrassed as I felt for having possibly given a dirty and scruffy yet non-homeless person food, I am not going to let that stop me. I am going to keep on giving.