Posted on March 23, 2010 - by admin

A Story From The Street

Got a call this afternoon from Haven of Rest about a woman there needing a place to stay. When she got on the phone I knew exactly who it was. Turns out I’ve been witnessing to her for months, others have witnessed to her for years. She just hasn’t been ready. I asked why she wanted to leave the shelter as I know she’s stayed there for a very long time and didn’t care to leave before. She told me she is now banned for life from the city shelter. I asked her to give me the details of why. She had threatened someone after they threw all her clothes and personal belongings in the dumpster as a prank. She told me she’d been sleeping in a grave yard downtown. It’s been freezing temps every night for at least 10 days. Since she was banned from the shelter, she couldn’t get meals there either. She hadn’t eaten in days. Mt. Moriah is drug/alcohol free and I asked her when the last time was she had a drink. She said she drank last night to keep warm. Then I asked when she last used street drugs. She again told me that it was last night, crack cocaine. Tearfully she begged me to come and get her and not let her sleep another night in the cemetery freezing with no food. I told her she didn’t qualify for MMCF until she went through detox and could give us clean urine. (I know that’s an oxymoron. Clean urine.) She agreed and I picked her up at the Haven this evening. She had nothing literally but the clothes she was wearing and they were wet. She hadn’t bathed in several days and the only thing she’d eaten was what other homeless people brought her of the food they could share. On the way to the hospital I asked her what she wanted and what kind of treatment she was seeking. She said she was ready this time. Ready for rules, ready for strict, ready to change in a big way.

How do people end up this way? She was very poor to begin with. She’d been in and out of the shelter for a long period of time. Over the last year she became an alcoholic. Last year her mother died. The only other family member was a daughter. Just months after her mother died, her daughter was found dead in the woods. She had been raped and stabbed to death. Alcohol was her way to mask the pain. Her alcohol addiction only compounded the problems she hadn’t yet dealt with. She looked at me and said “Renee, I don’t want to be an addict. I just don’t want to feel this pain.” After a week in detox then the psych ward, I picked her up and brought her to Mt. Moriah for the weekend. While she was in the hospital we helped her make arrangements for rehab. She stayed with us over the weekend until her bed was ready at rehab. That Sunday she attended church with us. Church starts. We pray. We sing. During the second song I look to my left to behold a most beautiful sight… she was clapping, singing, smiling, praising! When I saw her at church today worshiping I lost it. I had to run to the back in tears I just couldn’t hold it. There it was. There was God’s Spirit I saw God healing a broken soul. I felt humbled before God and proud of being in his service. She is now in a 12 month recovery program at Teen Challenge. I’m so excited for her. I can’t wait to hear about all the things God does in her over the coming months.