Learning about Love from a Homeless Woman. “I used to drive the same route daily and always saw a wrinkled old lady sitting in the grass wearing several coats and a cap, smoking cigarettes, drinking out of a two-liter Dr. Pepper bottle and talking to no one in particular. One hot summer day, I picked up an extra cherry-lime drink from a restaurant and stopped to give it to the woman. After explaining she didn’t owe me anything, I struck up a conversation with her and asked her if I could pray for her to which she angrily responded, “no!” A few weeks later, on a rainy night, my wife and I stopped to check on the woman again. When we stopped, another truck pulled up beside us and a Hispanic man wearing a blue-collar company uniform got out and lovingly spoke to the woman with genuine concern. I found out he had been caring for the woman for some time. The man’s name, though pronounced differently, was spelled J-e-s-u-s, and I was reminded that though the world may have forgotten the homeless woman, she was remembered by Jesus. You never know what might happen when you become willing to love the unlovely.”

Photo credit: FEMA/ Andrea Booher