Introduction: Where the Mess Meets the Sacred
Dedication
Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Thank you for opening this book. I want to be honest with you from the start—this is not a book filled with easy answers or tidy endings. What you’ll find here are stories from the front lines of ministry, stories that are messy, painful, and sometimes even hopeful.
This book is about the hard work of loving people whose lives don’t fit into neat boxes—people who live on the edges of society, who carry wounds we might never fully understand. It’s about the tension between hope and heartbreak, faith and frustration, grace and grit.
If you come expecting a polished, perfect version of ministry, you might feel uncomfortable. But if you’re willing to sit with the discomfort, to lean into the raw reality of this work, I hope you’ll catch a glimpse of a God who shows up most clearly in the broken places.
These stories are not mine alone. They belong to countless unnamed heroes who live with pain and courage every day. I share them with humility, respect, and deep gratitude.
May this book challenge you, encourage you, and remind you that ministry isn’t a program or a project—it’s messy, real, and sacred work.
Welcome to the journey.
— Sarah
To my clients—
the ones with trembling hands, tired eyes, and stories the world too often overlooks.
Thank you for trusting me with your truth.
Without you, this book would be blank.
To my mentor, Spring Hunter—
for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
To my tribe:
Jarett, my husband—thank you for years of listening, for holding me when the stories got heavy,
and for never once asking me to turn this calling off.
To Casey, my counselor—thank you for helping me find my voice,
and for reminding me that it matters.
And to Brooke—thank you for the best adventures of my life,
for showing me the beauty of friendship in the midst of chaos.
With love and deep gratitude,
Sarah
Chapter 9: The Preacher with a Cane
There are some people who enter your life like folklore—rough, raw, unforgettable. And there are others whose stories feel too big to fit inside a file folder or case note. He was both.
He grew up in the same town I did, though his version of it looked very different. His childhood held memories of segregated schools and land once owned by his family being sold off in parcels until nothing remained. He remembered Vietnam. Not just the uniform or the jungle—but the bullets, the trauma, the survival. His body came home, but a piece of him stayed behind.
By the time I met him, the streets had worn deep lines into his face. He had become something of a local homeless legend—equal parts mystery and mischief. Everyone downtown knew him. Especially law enforcement. He slept on a pallet near the square, one eye always open, ready to protect himself. He had reason to. People had jumped him before. Beaten him. Mocked him. If you got too close without warning, his cane might find your shin before your words did.
But he loved me.
And honestly? I loved him right back.
I’d pull up beside him in my car, and his face would light up. He never asked where we were going—he just got in. Sometimes it was for a burger. Sometimes to check his mail. Sometimes just to ride with the window cracked and the blues humming from the radio. Wherever it was, it was always an adventure. And I was always glad he let me come along.
Then one winter morning, I got the call.
They found him outside—his face frozen to the concrete.
His body temperature was barely 80 degrees. His pulse was nearly undetectable. And yet, somehow, he was still alive.
I raced to the hospital, not knowing what I would find. Day after day, I showed up at his bedside, encouraging the nurses who looked at him with fear or frustration.
“He’s not dangerous,” I told them. “He’s just been hurt more than most of us can understand.”
I wanted them to see what I saw. A man who had survived the streets, racism, war, and cold nights no one should ever have to face. A man whose bark was defense, not malice. A man who had been thrown away over and over and still got up every day and sang old hymns like he believed heaven was close.
Eventually, he was released to an assisted living facility. I was hopeful—maybe he’d get some rest, some peace. But even there, the bias followed.
The staff member assigned to intake him looked at me and said flatly,
“What do they expect me to do with these homeless people?”
I bit my tongue so hard it hurt. But I smiled and said:
“He’s not a case. He’s a man. A veteran. A survivor. A brother in Christ. He sings the old gospel songs better than anyone I’ve ever heard. Give him a chance—you’ll see.”
She didn’t say much after that. But I saw something soften in her eyes.
He was rough. Unpolished. Blunt. But he had a soul that shimmered under the surface, like gospel notes rising from gravel.
He reminded me that holiness doesn’t always come wrapped in gentle manners or clean clothes. Sometimes it shows up in a man with a cane, singing the blues into the night, asking only for a warm meal and a little dignity.
Some of the holiest people I’ve met wouldn’t be welcomed in most churches.
We’re all just a few hard breaks away from needing grace and a ride to check our mail.
People carry more than trauma—they carry resilience, music, and memory.
Ministry means biting your tongue sometimes—but it also means telling the truth with kindness.
Jesus doesn’t always wear robes—sometimes He’s wrapped in a coat from Goodwill, carrying a cane, still singing.
There are things I’ve witnessed in this work that I will carry for the rest of my life—beautiful things, redemptive things. And then there are the wounds I carry that I didn’t see with my own eyes, but that pierced my heart just the same.
The call came from the hospital—or maybe he called me himself. I can’t quite remember. I only remember the words “possible heart attack” and the way dread landed heavy in my chest.
When I got there, they were already running tests. It wasn’t a heart attack. It was a pulmonary embolism—silent, sudden, and deadly. He had nearly died. Statistically, he shouldn’t have made it. But he did.
When I sat beside his bed in the ICU, his voice was weak and cracked from tubes and trauma. But what he told me next broke me in a way that no diagnosis ever could.
“I was on the side of the road,” he said.
“I was slumped over in my chair, and I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I was trying to wave somebody down.”
I could picture it—his frail frame bent forward in a wheelchair, leaning against a concrete barrier that separated the road from the bridge. Alone. Helpless. Trying to mouth the word “help” to any car that would look his way.
“And then a truck pulled up,” he said.
For a moment, I felt hope. Someone had stopped.
But then he went on.
“They rolled down the window and screamed at me—‘Get a job, you bum!’—and then they threw a hot cup of coffee in my face.”
I sat in stunned silence. My breath caught in my throat.
“I thought I was gonna die,” he whispered. “And that’s the last thing I heard. That I was a bum.”
There aren’t words to describe the rage and grief that filled me in that moment. Not just for him—but for what it says about the world. That someone could see a man slumped over in a wheelchair, clearly in distress, and respond with hate.
I went home that night and wept.
I pictured him there, on that bumper. Hands barely able to lift. Mouthing the word “help” while cars drove by. While one didn’t. While someone hurled coffee and cruelty.
He spent close to three weeks in the ICU. The closest brush with death I’ve ever seen in this work. But somehow—by mercy I can’t explain—he recovered.
But even now, years later, I still carry that image.
I carry it as a reminder: That behind every rough exterior is someone who’s been screamed at, discarded, or dismissed. That no matter how strong or stubborn someone seems, they may be sitting in the wreckage of a moment they can’t forget.
And I carry it as a witness. That this world can be cruel—but Jesus is kind. That people may hurl coffee and condemnation, but God still sends help. And sometimes, help looks like a case manager walking into an ICU, holding a friend’s hand.
The world may call them bums. But God calls them beloved.
Cruelty wounds deeper than illness. But kindness heals where medicine can’t reach.
No cry for help is invisible to heaven.
Sometimes survival isn’t just a medical miracle—it’s a spiritual one.
The bridge between despair and hope is often built with presence.
I’ll never forget the day I walked into his hospital room and saw him weeping.
He had just lost his second leg.
For someone experiencing homelessness, losing even one limb changes everything. But losing two? That’s not just a physical loss—it’s a loss of mobility, independence, identity, hope. It was devastating.
He had done remarkably well with one prosthetic leg. He could navigate his camp, get to appointments, even show up at our center on his own. But this—this second amputation—was different. It broke something in him. And when I entered that room and saw them dressing his new wound, he looked up at me and the tears started to fall.
We had tried everything to avoid this outcome. Wound care, rides to the clinic, prayers. He had tried. We had tried. But it wasn’t enough.
His tears that day weren’t just about the pain. They were about the weight of what was coming next—how the fight to survive had just become even harder.
In the days that followed, he was moved to rehab. I kept visiting. At first, he didn’t say much. Just nodded. Let me sit with him. Sometimes presence says more than words ever can.
Weeks passed.
Then one day, I was at the ministry center when someone came flying down the hallway, yelling breathlessly:
“Sarah, you have to come see! You have to come now!”
I rushed to the window.
And there he was.
Outside, standing upright, clutching the side of the building for support—with both prosthetic legs on. Walking. HOBBLING. Determined.
I burst into tears right then and there.
He looked up and saw me through the glass and grinned. “I hoped I could surprise you!” he shouted.
I ran outside, hands over my mouth, still crying. And then he said something I’ll never forget:
“Step back. I want to walk to you.”
I froze.
He let go of the wall.
And then—slowly, shakily, and with every ounce of strength he could muster—he walked. One foot, then the other. No crutches. No hands. Just heart. Grit. Glory.
I stood still, watching him come toward me. The courtyard had filled with people—clients, volunteers, staff, even folks who had come for food that day. They stopped and watched. And when he reached me—sweating, crying, smiling—I opened my arms.
We both sobbed.
The whole courtyard erupted into clapping. People cheering. Some crying. Others just standing in awe.
And in that moment, on a concrete sidewalk outside a food pantry, it felt like heaven had come to earth.
This wasn’t just about walking again. It was about hope being resurrected in real time. It was about a man the world had overlooked standing tall—not just physically, but spiritually. It was about God showing up in prosthetics and pavement and applause.
Healing doesn’t always look like restoration—it sometimes looks like resilience.
The miracles we witness are often born from the messes we walk through.
You don’t have to be whole to be powerful—you just have to keep showing up.
Sometimes, the greatest sermons aren’t preached—they’re lived, step by shaky step.
God meets us not just in our rising, but in the long, hard walk it takes to get there.
Well, here I am again, Lord. For years you have given me a dream to write a book. I have started half a million books, yet always somehow find a way to talk myself out of my disgraceful writing. I guess you could say that this looks like obedience. If left up to my own decision, I would have given this writing session a second guess and talked myself out of it simply because of the enemy of comparison. I'm pretty sure that the Bible gives us a glimpse into the dangers of that very thing, or else there might not be a commandment somewhere that mentions the big-C word (covet) but here I am, thinking of all of the amazing writers I know and trying not to talk myself out of closing this laptop. Yet, obedience moves my fingers.
Truth be told, I know that you have given me a spiritual gift and while it may not be as good as others I know, it's mine. You are a good giver of gifts and I would never want to neglect the things that you have given me. So I humbly press on and rest in the fact that this is obedience, whether my brain is convinced of this gift or not.
Thirty days.
Six years ago, you stirred something in my heart and it changed the trajectory of my life. I was on summer break from the classroom and you challenged me. I wanted to serve my community. I didn't want to waste away my summer break. I felt a nudge to sacrifice my time off and go where you sent me. Community pantries, clothing closets, church... I just knew that I wanted my time off to count for something. I had no idea what you were up to, but you have never proven to not be faithful. After all, you are a Good Father. You led me to places where my perspective changed on so many levels. You put me in front of people from all walks of life, and you gave me so much fulfillment to walk alongside them. To offer prayers and encouragement when you prompted me to, to love as you would.
That summer, my life changed. You reminded me of the calling that you had put in my life as a young child and my heart was so full to be able to serve people once again. I believe a revival was stirred in my heart that year, and I am so thankful for that. Six years later, I am still thankful for the calling that you have put on my life and for the people I serve. Whether they are sheltered or homeless, addicts or preachers, sinners or saints, lost or found, loved or forgotten, we all have something in common: we need you.
As I approached the new year, I pondered the state of my heart. I have to admit, 2022 had a lot of highs and lows. Our family has become closer and I am thankful to you for that. I see you working! Yet, my heart still aches for the loss of mom, an unexpected event that still takes my breath away when I stare too long at her picture or watch a video of her laughter. Still, I press on to the things that you have for me to do. For the next thirty days as I pray and fast, I commit myself to new revelations that you have for me. Each day, I will obey my calling to write out the ways you spoke to me that day and ask that you speak loud, for your servant is listening.
Day 1
Before the work day had even begun, I received a text from a coworker who had discovered a woman sleeping behind the building. The temperature was barely 32 degrees and it was a miracle she had slept outdoors in it and was able to tell about it. Wrapped barely in a blanket that would cover her body stretched out, she was happy to talk to the staff as we tried to help her on this frigid morning.
As I thought about what it must've been like for her to find our building in the middle of the night and sleep outside in the dark, I cringed at the thought. The bravery she must've had, and the determination she showed by making it to us to wait until the morning to be discovered, I was humbled. She had made it to us and survived. I remembered times in my own life when I had nothing. No hope, no direction, no understanding of how to be ok. Just as this woman walked to the hope she had heard about from others who told her about the "center that helps homeless people," I thought about my own life and how there had been moments in my own life where Jesus met me when I had no hope. How thankful I was to have made it to Him, and what it meant to have a firm foundation again. When we talk about our unsheltered neighbors and how hard it is for them to go without running water, heat, and walls when there is snow on the ground, the foundation is missing. Today perhaps, I realized that we can still have a roof over our heads and be missing a foundation, and he is more firm than any walls could be.
Today, I am thankful for the true foundation I have in you, Jesus.
Of all the people I’ve walked with through this work, none affected me quite like her. And nothing has broken me more than the day she was gone.
You already know the kind of person she was—barefoot, loud, unpredictable. Most saw her as a nuisance. Some were afraid of her. But not me. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, she let me in when she wouldn’t let many others come close. She’d sit in my office and laugh, crack jokes that made me blush, and ask for things in a way that wasn’t really asking—it was more like daring you to say no.
She had horrible feet—calloused, cracked, sometimes bleeding. Because of that, it wasn’t unusual for her to ask me for a ride, especially if it meant walking to her camp. I gave her rides more than I probably should have. But over time, others started asking, too. If I didn’t draw a boundary somewhere, I would’ve become a cab driver with a ministry badge. So I began saying no. Even to her.
And then came the pandemic.
“Shelter in place” was the headline of the day. But for those with no shelter at all, the pandemic made life even harder. Stores closed their doors. Public restrooms were locked. People with no homes had no options—no warmth, no water, no dignity. We tried our best to pivot: hot meals through plexiglass, masks and gloves on, and a firm stop on any transportation services.
The last time she asked me for a ride, it was just a short trip. She shrugged when I told her no, and I tried to shrug it off too. It was only five minutes away. I told myself she’d be fine.
But she wasn’t.
I left work about half an hour later, driving to my mom’s house when I saw the flashing lights—an ambulance, fire trucks, chaos. And my heart sank.
Another client who regularly panhandled nearby was screaming as I pulled up. What I stepped into next is something I still have trouble describing. She was gone. The only fatality in a pedestrian-versus-vehicle accident. Gone instantly.
A paramedic made me stand back, shielding me from the worst of it, and gently asked if I knew her name and birthday. I did. He told me to go back to my office and pull her file so I could provide her identification to the coroner.
I went through the motions. Pulled her file. Made copies of her driver’s license.
I accidentally made ten.
I stood there staring at them, at the last printed image of her face I might ever see. I still carry one of those copies in my Bible—a quiet memorial in the pages where I go to wrestle with God.
Because for a long time, I believed I was responsible for her death.
That my “no” was the deciding factor between her life and her death.
It took time. Prayer. Counseling. The kind of grace that comes slow and steady. I had to learn what grief and guilt look like when they hold hands. I had to learn that I’m not God. That I don’t control outcomes, even when my heart wants to believe I do.
Later that night, I found the man who had witnessed her death. We wept together. I don’t remember if we prayed. I don’t think it mattered. God was there.
A week later, that same man started collecting change from his panhandling spot. A dollar here, a handful of coins there. Enough to buy her a gravestone. It sits under a tree at our ministry center now—quiet and dignified. He gave what little he had to honor her. And we’ll keep that stone in place as long as the center stands.
Her absence hollowed me out. I fell into a depression I didn’t know how to name. But in time, I started to remember what a friend told me: One moment does not undo a lifetime of care.
That day didn’t erase the foot washings, or the laughter, or the mornings she called me “her girl” and grinned like I was the only person who had ever seen her as more than a case file. It didn’t erase the shoes we slid onto her aching feet, or the trust we built brick by stubborn brick.
She wasn’t just a client. She was a friend.
I still miss her.
But I thank God—truly—that He has begun to restore what her death broke in me.
Grief is heavy, but guilt is heavier—and only grace can carry it.
We are not responsible for outcomes, only obedience.
Ministry means loving people so deeply that losing them leaves a mark.
God grieves with us, even when words are gone.
One moment does not define a whole story. God sees the whole story.
I had to set firm boundaries early on—if I didn’t, she would’ve walked right through them. But underneath all the rough edges, there was something else. Something tender. Something watchful. Something… sacred.
I’ll never forget the first time she asked for medical supplies. Her feet were in rough shape—dirty, cracked, bleeding in places. She didn’t wear shoes, ever. When she asked for help bandaging them, I was still so new in my role. I was eager to help, and honestly? I was honored.
I remember kneeling in front of her with a bowl of warm water, cleaning each foot and wrapping them with fresh gauze. I thought of Jesus—how He washed the feet of His disciples. I remember thinking how beautiful it was that I got to do something like that. Back then, I was still bright-eyed, a little naïve. But that moment stayed with me. I didn’t know yet how messy this ministry could get. I just knew I wanted to show up like Jesus did.
And then came the day I really saw her differently.
It was one of those bitterly cold mornings—the kind that slips into your bones before you’ve even had your coffee. The temperature had dropped dangerously low overnight, and by 8 a.m., our tiny lobby was packed. People were crammed into every chair and standing shoulder to shoulder, all hoping to escape the cold just for a while. A single 12-cup coffee pot was trying to keep up with a lobby full of people desperate for warmth. We were handing out every glove, sock, coat, and hat we could find.
There was one man slumped over near the wall—we knew he had taken something, and his body wasn’t handling it well. Another woman sat curled up in a chair, burning with fever, barely able to stay awake. People were cold, hungry, sick, and desperate. Everyone needed something. Voices rose. So did tempers. The need was overwhelming, and so were the emotions in the room. My coworkers and I were doing everything we could, but it wasn’t enough. The chaos was swallowing us whole.
And then—she stood up.
The same woman everyone had warned me about. The one who could intimidate a grown man with one look.
“Everybody be quiet!” she shouted, her voice sharp and commanding. “We are going to stop and pray right now.”
And just like that—the room went still.
I can’t remember if it was me or my coworker who prayed out loud. I just remember the silence. The stillness. The reverence. Even in a room full of addicts, trauma survivors, and people living hour to hour, the Spirit fell like a blanket over all of us.
A few people bowed their heads. Some whispered their own prayers. Others just closed their eyes and breathed a little deeper. And for a brief, holy moment, the whole room remembered that we weren’t alone.
That He was there.
That woman—the one the world saw as a problem, a burden, a bully—she was the one who made space for the Holy Spirit. She didn’t quote Scripture. She didn’t use churchy language. She just knew we needed something bigger than hot coffee and hand warmers. And she invited Him in.
I’ll never forget it.
The people we’re warned about are often the ones most sensitive to the Spirit.
Real ministry happens in the middle of chaos, not outside of it.
You don’t need a sanctuary to worship. Sometimes the most powerful altar is a lobby full of broken people.
The Holy Spirit can use anyone, and often, He chooses the ones we least expect.
When you create space for presence over performance, God shows up. Every time.
Chapter 4: The Soldier and the Sidewalk
By my second week, I was just beginning to settle into the rhythms of working with the homeless population. Most of the people I had met so far were chronically unhoused, living in tents or makeshift shelters, surviving one day at a time. Their stories were layered and complex—but not many of them came in carrying the kind of baggage he did.
And I don’t mean luggage.
He had just been discharged from a recovery program—not because he had completed it, but because he had broken the rules. I don’t know if it was a relapse or a conflict, and maybe it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was now standing outside a gas station with nothing but the clothes on his back and nowhere to go.
This wasn’t the first time I had gotten a call like that. The gas station down the road had become an unofficial drop-off point for men and women exiting treatment programs too soon. A bus stop sat out front, and the staff had gotten used to seeing people abandoned there—sometimes with a small bag, sometimes with only the hollowed-out look of shame. The gas station attendant would call us, knowing we’d do our best to help. Buy a bus ticket. Offer a blanket. Try to send someone back to wherever “home” might still be.
But this call came late in the day. Too late for a same-day ticket.
When I pulled up, I could see him pacing on the sidewalk, trying to hold himself together. He was young. Strong. You could still see traces of the man he was meant to be. But his eyes told a different story—one of trauma, regret, and a hope that was hanging by a thread.
He had once worn a uniform. He was a soldier.
But when he came home, the war didn’t stay overseas. It followed him in the form of nightmares, anxiety, and a deep ache he couldn’t name. Eventually, he found relief in a bottle—but it only blurred the pain until it bled into worse decisions. Legal trouble followed. Then court-ordered treatment. He had tried to walk the brave path. But the chains were heavier than anyone realized.
And now he was here. Alone. On the sidewalk. With one night to get through and nothing but a ticket for the morning.
We couldn’t find a hotel voucher in time. No one could sponsor a room. So I gave him food. A couple of blankets. A prayer I couldn’t say out loud. And then—I had to leave.
I still remember looking back at him as I pulled away. He lay down against the brick wall of the gas station, curling up as the evening chill began to settle in. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
All I could think about was how close he had once been to a different future. How he had served his country. How he had reached for help. How the system failed him, not because it meant to—but because it wasn’t made to carry what he was carrying.
And what haunted me most was this: he still had hope once. But it seemed to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.
Years have passed since that night, and I still think of him. I don’t know where he is now. I don’t know if he made it home, or if the chains won again. But one thing I do know is this:
I will never again believe that addiction is just a matter of bad choices.
Because I’ve seen the face of someone who fought like hell to stay clean, but whose pain ran deeper than any program could reach.
Now, when I see people trapped in addiction, I don’t see failure—I see suffering. I see stories no one asked to carry. I see people Jesus still pursues. People He still calls beloved.
I rejoice when they find freedom—not because of the statistics, but because I know what it costs to crawl out of that pit. And I rejoice even more knowing that we serve a Restorative God—a God who runs toward the prodigal, who lifts the head of the shamed, who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one.
Because at the end of the day, every one of us has been that lost sheep.
Addiction isn’t a character flaw—it’s a cry from a place of deep pain.
People don’t need our judgment; they need our presence.
Systems can fail. Programs can fall short. But Jesus never does.
The greatest miracle isn’t just recovery—it’s redemption.
We are all the one He left the ninety-nine for. And He’s still coming after us.
I hadn’t even been on the job three months when it happened.
I heard her before I saw her—panting, frantic, and on the verge of losing control. She burst through the lobby doors with the kind of urgency that makes everyone look up. Her voice cracked under the weight of desperation, and the panic in her tone silenced the office. I didn’t know it yet, but that sound would stay with me forever.
It was the fifth of the month. Just three days before, she’d come home from the hospital with a large incision and nine staples still holding her abdomen together after a reproductive surgery that hadn’t gone as planned. Recovery was supposed to mean rest. But instead, it meant an eviction notice taped to her front door.
She had two small kids at home and no idea how she was going to pay the rent she had missed after being off work for just a few days. She was a tipped worker. Three missed shifts meant three days of no income. It didn’t take long for everything to unravel.
As she sat in my office—half-bent in pain, half-unraveled from fear—we started making calls. The property management company wasn’t large. Just one rent collector and one maintenance guy. In situations like this, money helps—but communication is everything. Sometimes, a few dollars short doesn’t matter as much as a disconnected phone line or a person unwilling to listen. That day, I was determined: this family was not going to sleep in a car on my watch.
We found the funds. We were ready to pay. But by the time we got the answer we needed, it was too late.
My phone rang that afternoon, and I could hear it before I answered. Screaming. Crying. Chaos.
“They changed the locks on me, Mrs. Sarah! I can’t get inside! The kids just got off the bus and we are locked out!”
I could hear her children crying in the background. They had just spent an hour on the school bus, and now they stood outside their own front door with no way in. No bathroom. No snacks. No stability. Her car had run out of gas and wouldn’t even start. She had medicine inside she desperately needed to continue healing. And all I could do was load up snacks and drive as fast as I could.
When I arrived, it looked like a scene from a movie I never wanted to be part of. Her six-year-old was crying; her five-year-old was clutching his backpack and hopping from one foot to the other needing the bathroom. She was pacing, shaking, and beginning to unravel.
A kind neighbor opened their door and offered water and a bathroom to the children. I sat in my car with her as the weight of the day broke us both.
She screamed. I prayed.
And then we both cried.
“God, you know right where we are sitting,” I whispered through tears. “There is nothing we can do without Your help. Father, please—make a way. We are desperate.”
And then my phone rang.
It was the maintenance man—the one I had tried to reach all day. I explained everything again: the kids, the surgery, the funds, the fear. He listened. Then he called the property manager. Within the hour, someone came to unlock the door.
That was the moment the dam broke—not just for her, but for all of us. She ran inside. Her children followed.
The youngest climbed on top of the counter, opened the cabinet, and shouted with joy, “I’m gonna eat Cheerios now that we’re inside!”
That sentence hit me like a punch in the heart. All he had wanted… was a bowl of cereal. All they had needed… was access to what was already theirs.
I thought about what it would be like to be stranded with my own kids, without gas in the car, no access to my medicine, no bathroom, and nowhere to go. The rage. The fear. The helplessness.
And yet—I was grateful. Grateful that this time, God had moved quickly. Grateful that when we called on Him in a parking lot full of despair, He answered with a phone call that opened a door.
But I also left with something heavier: the realization that this is what ministry really looks like. Not revival services. Not sermon notes. Just a mother with staples in her stomach, trying to hold her life together with the last thread of her sanity—and the presence of God meeting us there, in a minivan full of snacks and snot and sacred desperation.
Crisis doesn’t schedule an appointment. It kicks down the door. Ministry means being willing to sit in the rubble.
The Church isn’t always a building. That day, it was the front seat of my car, soaked in tears and prayer.
Sometimes the miracle isn’t that everything gets fixed—it’s that God shows up at all.
We don’t just minister to the “deserving.” We minister to the desperate. Because that’s what Jesus did.
People on the edge don’t need platitudes. They need presence. And sometimes, they just need Cheerios.
Yesterday was Halloween, and for a moment, I thought I was going to have to dress up as a human shield.
I had stopped by one of the regular spots where I sometimes found people holding signs or sleeping beneath the awnings of closed stores. There was a chill in the air, and I had extra blankets and food in the car—just enough to offer some warmth for someone preparing to brave the coming cold. I spotted a man on the curb, weather-worn and still. He held a cardboard sign with quiet desperation, the kind you only notice if you're really looking.
Before I could approach him, another man pulled up in a truck and got out, carrying a to-go container. My heart warmed. Aww, look at that, I thought. Someone bringing him lunch. The world really is full of good people. I smiled in his direction, comforted by what I assumed was a shared purpose.
But I had misread the moment.
The man with the to-go container didn’t hand over lunch. He didn’t kneel or offer a kind word. He stood tall—towering, really—and unleashed a storm.
“I’ve seen your kind around here,” he snapped, his voice sharp enough to slice through the air. “I don’t like you coming in these establishments, using the bathrooms. Why are you distracting drivers? You need to go do something with your life and quit being lazy!”
I stepped instinctively between them. It wasn’t courage, not really. It was more like disbelief—an internal voice saying, Surely this isn't happening. But it was. I had become a human shield.
The man sitting on the curb didn’t argue. He didn’t raise his voice or look for an exit. He just sat there, the weight of the insults seeming heavier than the cold he was about to face that night.
Then the final blow came.
The man looked directly at me and said, “Do you really think you can help him, ma’am? I go to church, but this is different.”
That line burned its way into my spirit.
I go to church, but this is different.
Suddenly, my empathy shifted—not just toward the man on the curb, but toward the one with the finger pointed in accusation. I wondered what must have happened in his life to close his heart so tightly. What gospel had he been taught that stopped at the church doors? What Jesus did he know?
I watched as my new homeless friend accepted a blanket and a few packs of food, his “thank you” as quiet and deep as his suffering. But it was the man who had come full of condemnation who walked away carrying something heavier—something that can’t be fixed with a blanket or a meal. He walked away with a heart cloaked in pride and a soul untouched by compassion.
As I got back in my car, the words of Jesus echoed in my thoughts: You are the light of the world. And I found myself asking—what kind of light are we, really?
It’s easy to shine around those who look like us, think like us, act like us. But what about when we’re asked to shine in the shadows? What about when love demands we stand in the cold, in the tension, in the in-between? What does our faith look like then?
This wasn’t the first time I had seen a man judged for being poor. It wouldn’t be the last. But something about the sharp contrast between the words, “I go to church” and the actions that followed made this moment feel like a mirror. And the reflection wasn’t easy to look at.
True faith isn’t proven inside a sanctuary—it’s revealed in the street, the shelter, the unseen spaces.
It’s not enough to “go to church”—we are called to be the Church.
When love costs us our comfort, our pride, or our plans, that’s when it most resembles the love of Jesus.
The light of Christ doesn’t flicker in familiar places—it shines brightest in the dark.
Condemnation is easy. Compassion is holy.
Jesus didn’t pass by the hurting. He sat with them. He ate with them. He saw them.
And if we want to walk with Him—we have to be willing to do the same.
Chapter One: The White House
She came in frantic, her hands trembling as she tried to make sense of a world that wasn’t listening. Her eyes darted, wide with fear, her movements rushed and uncertain. She was hearing impaired, and that barrier—already isolating—was now made unbearable by pain and desperation.
She motioned urgently, pulling at her clothing to reveal a wound at the base of her abdomen, raw and angry, the smell unmistakable. There was no time for modesty, no space left for social norms or comfort. She needed someone—anyone—to see her, to understand.
We found her a notebook, and her handwriting shook across the page:
"I had surgery and am homeless and my incision is hurting really bad."
Just eleven words. But behind those words was a world of suffering.
She didn’t know the name of her doctor. She didn’t know where she was supposed to go next. A cab had brought her to town and left her here, alone and forgotten. Five days post-op, nowhere to rest, nowhere to heal.
I knew we needed medical help, and somehow—thankfully—we found someone willing to take a look at her wound. It was clear the infection had already taken hold.
But then came the bigger question. One I’ve heard too many times.
“Where could she go?”
That question led me to the white house. Once grand, now faded. Once filled with light, now shadowed by the lives of the broken and the barely surviving. But it was the only place left with a door we could knock on.
The first thing I saw when I pulled up to the white house was a man sitting outside in nothing but a pair of shorts. No shirt, no shoes. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, and empty bottles of liquor lay scattered at his feet like ghosts of long nights. I had come with food, clothing, and medicine—just enough to get her through the weekend. But even with my arms full, I felt unarmed.
I parked and gathered the bags, bracing myself for whatever I was about to walk into. I asked the man for Room 8, my voice steady even though my stomach wasn’t. He nodded toward the house without much interest.
As I stepped through the front door, a dozen pairs of eyes seemed to turn toward me at once. Suspicion. Curiosity. Maybe even hunger. I didn’t belong there, and everyone knew it. The air was thick with fifty years of stale cigarette smoke, the kind that clings to the walls, the furniture, your lungs. I had to force myself to breathe.
The grand oak staircase loomed ahead, still beautiful despite the years, like a broken heirloom no one had bothered to care for. I climbed the steps quickly, scanning door numbers—6, 7—and then paused. Room 8 was invisible, hidden behind a door left wide open.
I’ll never forget what I walked into.
She was lying naked on the bed, her tiny frame barely covered by a hand towel. The room was dim, the light muted by a haze of smoke. A smoldering cigarette rested on a tin can beside her, used as an ashtray. A cheap bottle of vodka stood next to it, half-drained and abandoned. The way she was lying… I knew someone had just left. The air still felt occupied.
Whether what had happened was violence or survival, I couldn’t tell. But the suggestion of it—the vulnerability of it—hit me hard. I felt a chill of fear crawl up my back, thinking about the doors nearby, the men who might be behind them. Could one of them hurt me too? I shut the door gently, but firmly, and set the bags down.
I covered her with a blanket I had brought.
She stirred and opened her eyes, blinking through tears that came almost instantly. She reached for her notebook—the only voice she had in a world that didn’t hear her—and began to write. Over and over again, she scrawled the same two words: Thank you.
When her eyes drifted to the medicine, the soup, the folded clothes, her shoulders shook. It was then that I understood something I didn’t expect to feel: relief. Not because I condoned what may have happened—but because it seemed, somehow, that she had chosen it. That in a life stripped of choices, this one, however heartbreaking, had been hers.
There was a kind of sacredness in that moment. Not pretty, not clean—but sacred, still. A life at its most fragile, still reaching out in gratitude. And me, just trying to meet her there.
I was grateful to care for her that day—deeply, humbly grateful—because it felt like the fulfillment of a promise God had started whispering to me weeks before.
It had begun two weeks earlier, on the eve of a church trip to Indianapolis. I was still volunteering in the homeless sector back home, not yet on staff, not yet equipped with anything more than a willing heart and a few dollars to spare. That night, as I packed, I felt a tug so strong it stopped me mid-task. God laid it on my heart to bring care kits—soap, snacks, clean socks, anything I could gather—for the homeless I might meet on the trip.
I didn’t have the money to do it. Not really. But somehow, God made a way. I packed what I could with what I had, and off I went, not knowing that the act of obedience I thought was about them was also about me. That trip changed my life. I came back home with more than memories—I came back with direction. Not long after, I was offered a staff position as a case manager, advocating full-time for the people I had been volunteering to serve.
That day at the white house, standing in a room that reeked of survival and suffering, I remembered all of that. I remembered the tug, the kits, the trip, the “yes.” And I realized I was living in the answer to a prayer I didn’t even know I had prayed.
No longer was I scrambling to find supplies. I had food. I had medicine. I had blankets and clothes and the authority to use them. I didn’t have to worry about money anymore—I had been outfitted to care.
God had given me exactly what I needed, not just for a job, but for her. For that moment.
Even though I was standing in one of the darkest places I’d ever been, I felt covered in light.
Final Takeaways:
God often prepares us for moments long before we understand why.
When you follow His promptings, even when it doesn’t make sense, He meets you on the other side of your obedience.
The broken places are sacred when you carry love into them.
Ministry doesn’t always look like a pulpit—sometimes, it looks like a blanket, a can of soup, and a listening heart.
The provision always comes when your heart is positioned to serve.
This was just the beginning. The white house wasn’t the end of the story. It was the doorway.
