Humbled Once Again

On our first day of service with the L.A. Dream Center we did the food truck where we went to poor neighborhoods and handed out groceries to families. A homeless lady came up with her grocery cart was signing her name on the list of people to get food. It asked what her address was. Well, she didn’t know what to put since she didn’t have an address. The Dream Center worker told her to just right “street” as her address.
As I over heard this conversation it made me think what her life must be like living on the street. I complain at times because our home isn’t very large, and how I would love to have a family room and an extra bedroom….but I have an address right? I need to be thankful for that. I also have two cars. I have a garage and storage space. All this lady had was a grocery cart to haul all of her belongings in.
She needed help carrying her bags of groceries to her cart, so I helped her. We stepped away from the group to bring her groceries to the cart. After I was done she reached out her hands towards me and asked if I would pray for her. She wanted me to hold her hands while we prayed. I looked at her dirty hands and I started to pull my sweatshirt over my hands so that I wouldn’t have to touch her skin. Quickly, I became ashamed of my reaction. In a split second I started think about how Jesus served the poorest street people. He embraced them. Here I was asked to simply pray with her while holding her hands. How long had it been since she had someone touch her lovingly? I reached out my hands and grabbed her dirty hands with my bare clean hands. I squeezed her hands and prayed with her. I prayed that she should feel God’s presence in her life, I prayed for her safety, and I prayed for her health. I am so humbled by my initial reaction in not want to touch her. How could I be showing Christ’s love to her when I wouldn’t even touch her?
Sometimes God wants us to get our hands dirty, take that chance and reach out to people we would turn our eyes from. We have to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to serve God’s people. He created each of us and he loves each of us. As Christians we must start serving our community. It will take sacrifices. It will be uncomfortable. It will take away from our time. But it WILL Glorify God, and that is reason enough to do WHATEVER IT TAKES!