a new look at homelessness (lenten reflection)

I teach high school.  We are a very service-oriented high school, too.  We prepare food for the homeless, clean up and repair buildings, and so on.  We support Adopt-A-Family.  My students know about homeless, and so do I.

So imagine my surprise when I began our devotions last week from a book for teachers that gives a devotion for each period during Lent, only to realize that I myself had been homeless.

No, I never lost my house.  I never had to beg for money on the streets.  God has been supremely gracious to me, because it easily could have ended up like that for my family and me after my husband died.  Instead, he brought my sister to dare me to go back to school.  I did, got my degree, began teaching, and was in the middle of my first year when my husband died.

What I realized this week was that I was "homeless" in that I moved and had no home.  Home was Bakersfield, as I've mentioned earlier.  In Tucson, I knew nobody, had no idea of where the good places to live, eat, buy clothes, go shopping, or find fun things to do were.  At that time, I was not a person who reached out easily, and so I didn't make friends and spent my first few years in solitude.

What a blessing it would have been had someone reached out!  When from time to time someone spoke words of encouragement to me, took me to coffee, or just reached out a hand in friendship, it was as if morning was dawning in a cold dreary night.

This is the lesson that my students and I learned this week.  God asks you to comfort those who are without comfort, care for your brothers and sisters, and minister to those in need.  You don't have to look in soup kitchens or on skid row for them; they're right here--in the workplace, in school, in your own neighborhood.

Have you noticed that new face at work?  Have you heard about the young mother whose husband just shipped out?  Did you get the news about the elderly lady whose husband just died?  Those people are your Lenten sacrifice--speak to them, offer them a hand of welcome, fix them a dinner, offer to babysit. You'll be amazed at how good it makes you feel.