I was standing in the Blue Line subway. I smelled him before I saw him. He carried a hiking backpack full of his possessions, his home. His clothes were tattered, his hair matted. He tentatively approached me, imploring. He expected my response. He shuffled on. Disappointment guided him and hope trailed behind him.
This is one of many encounters I have had with heart wrenching suffering while living in Chicago. This is the one that forced me into action.
I watched the man vanish into the bellows of the subway. Accompanied with a vague sense of numbness, a question plagued me. Had I just ensured my self interest by sacrificing this man’s hope? Hope for change, hope for the future, hope in goodness… Hope in God? Despair transformed into disgust. I would no longer tolerate my own passivity. I needed to act.
It is hard for me, even now, to comprehend how a request for money from a homeless man spurred such a revolution inside of me. That’s God- always working in ways I will never understand. All I can do now is marvel at the journey I am about to embark on.
As my comfort is stripped away, as my vulnerability and fear are exposed, and as I forego my self interest, I want to experience what it is like to live on hope alone, as so many do. My desire for this mission is to chase after God, and through Him, spread the power of hope to the needy, the broken, and the suffering.
