Crumpled on the sidewalk, tiny legs bent at awkward, almost impossible angles, a woman who moments before had been yelling unintelligible words, was collapsed on a step. With her head bobbled back you could see a large spot road rash covering her chin and neck. She was in rough shape. We watched her on the step and it was all I could do to pray. My teammate bent down and sat next to her and began praying too. Neither of us had remember to bring our rescue meds to ministry today.
The cops showed up not too long after, they had noticed the disturbance from moments before. Two officers stepped out of the car, walked over, and stared down at the small woman with placid faces and leisurely asked how long she had been down. One of the officers walked over and kicked at her with his boot and harshly told her to get up. My teammate and I exchanged glances and we both kept praying under our breath.
A woman walking down the street towards us stopped abruptly, looked down, squinted and said “Erica?! Erica? Is she ok?” No one reacted. My stomach dropped. The woman who looked dead on the street had a name. Suddenly she seemed so much more like a person.
The cop signed and walked back to his car and grabbed some Narcan. He put on a surgical glove, administered the rescue meds, then in one swift motion, threw both the glove and the used Narcan container into the gutter.
The woman on the street, Erica, remained motionless with her eyes rolled back in her head. I kept praying and tried to ignore the disinterested frustration of the cops. It took at least three minutes for the meds to kick in. It was around this time that the EMTs arrived. Two EMTs got out of the ambulance, one of the EMTs walked over and gave Erica a quick sternum rub, and to my surprise, she jumped right up and began trying to walk off. The EMT tried to ask her if she wanted to go to the hospital, but she brushed him off and stumbled down the street. I watched the EMT sigh and pick up his bag.
My teammate asked the EMT what the heck just happened and he very calmly said that if an overdose isn’t too severe, after the Narcan is administered, a good uncomfortable sternum rub can jolt someone’s system enough and they will just ‘pop right up’- and they should have known to do that, he said, glancing at the cops, who at this point were standing off at a distance with their hands on resting on their belts. We thanked the EMT as he got back into the ambulance.
The cops loaded back up into their car, and the small crowd that had assembled, scattered just as quickly as it had gathered. I couldn’t help asking myself what I had just witnessed.
Since partnering with this ministry, I have seen other people OD and need assistance, but this was different. This was the first time that I had seen someone refuse further medical treatment, but this was also the first time that I saw someone respond with apathy and annoyance instead of compassion and alarm. I spent so much of the day playing over the events in my head, and feeling broken for this broken woman.
I thought about the cops, how they had responded with unkindness and apathy towards someone in need. I was angry. I remember in the moments right after all this took place asking the Lord to never let me become so hard-hearted towards another human being.
In this, the Lord challenged my perspective and reminded me of what trauma can do to people (The Lord doesn’t give me much time to be angry and short-sighted these days). Those cops probably have faced many similar situations. Let their hearts break and ache for people who ran away and refuse help. I’m sure they have stumbled into situations where they have found people that they have tried to help in the past dead. It must be hard to feel helpless every time that they get similar calls to this one. Maybe not getting too involved helps them cope with watching people almost die on the streets regularly. Whether that’s right or wrong, I felt convicted that they are not bad people, and I need to pray for them all the more. They need the saving grace and the loving heart of Jesus to stand in the gap and show up when no one else will. They need His sustaining love that keeps us from becoming hard-hearted. After all, the Lord’s heart never becomes hardened towards us.
Then I started to think about Erica. How did she get to this point? Where was her family? Why is she doing this to herself? I thought about how very few people choose this life. How they say that often times it’s people who have been through traumas or rough life situations that end up addicted and strung out like this. I watched Erica walk away from those who were trying to help her, I watched her cling to the very thing that was killing her, and in that moment I wanted to grab her and tell her that all she has to do is cry out to Jesus. I wanted to share that at times it would be hard, but that it would be worth it to follow Him- she doesn’t have to live this life, He is waiting for her with open arms and that He would love her in a way that she has never known before, He would heal her.
I wanted to share all of these things, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt convicted about my own life. I’m not even living in the freedom that I want to extend to her. I thought about how often I have run from the Lord and from His hand of protection and mercy in exchange for what I thought was better, or for what felt easier in the moment. How often has He given me a chance to choose into things like healing and growth, but I looked at it and thought, ‘that’s too hard, I’m ok with where I am’. How often I have thought I could do things better on my own, and ended up hurt and broken because of it. Unfortunately, more often than I’d like to admit.
I know that the Lord’s heart aches for Erica, and that He desires for her to experience healing and freedom from her addiction and sin not only in heaven, but here on earth. I also know that His heart aches for all of His children when we choose sin over freedom, bondage over relationship with Him. At the end of the day we are all dying and wasting away if we don’t have Jesus. Spiritually we are all laying dead on the side of the road without Him. Jesus wants to heal us and restore us, He wants to be in relationship with us, but He gives us all a choice.
I can’t change the hearts of the cops, or Erica, but I can change my own heart. I can choose to to pursue people in love, no matter how many times I’ve been hurt or rejected. I can choose to submit myself to Christ daily. I have the freedom to walk out of my sin and into the healing that the Lord is extending to me, and when I feel like I don’t have the strength to do it, I get to lean into Jesus and trust that He is strong enough for me. There is never a promise that these things will be easy, in fact, the Lord promises that it will actually be pretty hard, but it’s worth it. Those same truths that I wanted to tell Erica, I get to tell myself, and anyone who will listen. Jesus is calling all of us into a new life with Him. We don’t have to settle with an ok life, or a half-healed life, or a numbed life. A full, complete, healed life is offered to all of us through Jesus. It’s a long process, we have to continue to choose it every day, every hour, every second, but I can tell you that even within the past two weeks, I can see where the Lord has healed emotional wounds in me when I have chosen to lay myself down at His feet. I feel free from things I never thought I’d be able to heal from. It’s worth it.
If there is an area of your life that you have resisted trusting the Lord with, make today be the day that you just surrender it to Him.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
Much Love,
Morgan
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