For A Moment

A tear slid down his 18 year old cheek as he looked away, overcome with emotion as he accepted the dollar store rain poncho I offered him.  Twenty four hours earlier, I had stood in this same homeless shelter facility with two other people to offer the hope and love of Jesus Christ through a small gift bag of toiletry and food items. While we were there the day before, he was roaming the streets, contemplating jumping from the bridge, having no one in the world left that cared about him.  A voice inside his head said, “Don’t!”  He now turned towards us, giving each of us a hug when prior to this day, human touch repulsed him.  

At four years old, he watched his father die a violent death by gunshot.  His mother, unable to navigate through her own grief, was unable to recognize the devastating warning signs in her son. By his teen years, she abandoned him, leaving him to find his own way.

Honestly, it was a very small gift bag of items, yet you would have thought I had given him the world.  It is not the big things that we do; it’s the little things we do at the nudging of the Holy Spirit and he takes those little things and turns them into life changers.

In this young man’s case, for a moment, truth lived and the lies died; healing triumphed and death was defeated; a tormented mind was given a reprieve of peace.