Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in the name of ‘Christianity’, my then husband deserted my three kids and myself in a van on the side of the road. Thankfully, it was Southern California and not Minnesota.

We were homeless for about 5-6 months. We couldn’t get financial help because we didn’t have an address and we couldn’t get an address without financial help. It was a mess.

We bathed in parks. Ate things most normal Americans would turn their noses at and lived inside our ‘cozy’ van.

The churches were mostly useless. One church thinking it was doing us a big religious favor gave us a bag of food. Inside was a super sized bag of spaghetti noodles along with the extra large size of Ragu sauce. There were other items like this that were of no value to a homeless person.

How did they intend for me to not just cook the spaghetti but to store it afterwards since everything they gave me was in bulk and I obviously did not have a refrigerator? It was truly sad.

At first, I spend a good portion of my days crying. I was crying more for my kids. I was crying out to God to see our needs. And he did. He just didn’t exactly view them like I did… with a finite mind.

In time I grew to enjoy the solitude that living on the streets provided. I didn’t have rent or bills or collectors. I wasn’t boggled down with the everyday minute things that we as humans tend to blow out of proportion. My most important decisions were to keep the kids safe, find a park or somewhere for the kids to have some fun, find food, and find somewhere safe to park at night.

Those seem like huge things to accomplish but folks do most of that everyday anyhow but just within the confines of their stationary dwelling. This is obviously done in a different manner and it is attached with all sorts of extra curricular necessities that become ‘needs’. To the homeless all these extra-fluff things become obsolete and unnecessary to maintain daily.

Even in the midst of all that we went through during that season, I have to admit I had the greatest amount of peace that I have ever possessed in my life. God was more than super-naturally good. He provided as he saw fit. It stretched me. I saw life from outside my comfortable house and got to be one of ‘them’. I learned the heartaches and the pressures that street folks deal with. I also learned that too many homeless folks do not want the help to come in from out of the cold because of all the strings attached to it.

In the midst of it all, I knew that I knew that God was right there and that he had a plan. I knew that he was in control and that even if I got mad at him, screamed, and cried, ultimately he knew my heart only wanted what his wanted and I would wait in his timing to deliver me. And he did… very graciously.