What I Have Learned

The following is the testimony that I gave last Sunday at North Hills Community Church. Marc asked me to put it on the blog this week. ~Charity Blumer

When I first started going to Food for Life, I was not even dating my husband. I had met him and thought that it sounded like a great ministry, so I started volunteering.

I believed in the church’s responsibility to care for the poor, but I thought that would look like me giving them money or items that they needed and maybe serving a meal at a place like Food for Life. At first, everyone who volunteers, including myself, starts to wonder what makes a person live a lifestyle of homelessness, since many of them have been coming to Food for Life for years. I quickly drew some conclusions about them, like this one is a drug addict, this one is a bad alcoholic, this one can’t read therefore can’t get a job. I observed their lifestyle choices, the drugs, alcohol, prostitution, immorality and general disregard for marriage, and without premeditating to do it, that is how I defined them when I thought of them. It was how I made sense out of why they are the way they are.

It has taken me all the way until this year to alter my thinking, after really learning some things about my own sin nature and also getting to know some of them better, and re-evaluating my whole way of thinking about how to help the poor and needy. I started getting to know their stories, and I discovered that there isn’t just one reason that they are the way they are. They aren’t homeless just because they are drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, or lazy. There are many layers that explain why they are living this sad lifestyle.

And the thing that I have been struck with the most is that they really aren’t that different from me. There was a time when I would have said, “I could never be homeless, I would rather die than spend one night on the street, and I would do anything to make sure that I never had to.” But I would have spoken out of ignorance. As I have considered their histories, I have realized that most of them have experienced more abuse, neglect, and hardship than I can even comprehend. If I had experienced the kinds of things that most of them have, I would be just like they are.

What makes me different from them really has nothing to do with me. I was born into a different life, with wonderful parents and great opportunities and the grace of God all around me. It was a gift that had nothing to do with me.

So now when I look at them I don’t think, “How could you let yourself live this life,” I simply feel overwhelmed with compassion, and even though I know that for many of them it is going to take a Holy Spirit miracle for their lives to change, I hope and pray that I get to see the miracle take place.