My heart breaks...

My heart breaks each time I get a call from someone in desperate need! I get several of these calls a month. That's why I have set up the "Renewing Joy Fund" at our church, so that we can meet some of these needs!

Today's call was a lady who came up here from Georgia to pick watermelons. She has a 1 year old son and is staying at the Thrift Travel Motel. She needed help with the room but more than that, she said she and her son were hungry... I could hear the son crying in the background. She was hoping to hold on til the 3rd when she got a check and could go back to Georgia. But today is the 27th.

At first I told her that I could gladly get them something to eat... asked her what she liked... chicken was the reply... so, I went to Chic-Fila and got her and her son two 12 pack value meals. On the way there, I felt led to offer to pay one night's lodging from the renewing joy fund.

The struggle I have is how do you help someone in such a situation change the situation... my offer of food and a night's lodging means she is in the same situation tomorrow! Yet, not to help her seems unChristian. After all Jesus taught us that when we shared with the "least of these" we shared with him. And the Apostle Paul teaches that "Since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us." (I John 4:11,12)

And I believe that full expression of love has no room for judgement of what made this lady get in the situation she is in...it just calls for me to show love... Wouldn't the world be a different place if we all looked out for each other? Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he taught us to "do it to the least of these"!