PRAY: Let His Grace walk with us

We were on our way back to Agape House after completing most of our walk when I saw something that really shook me up. It was about 10:30pm and it was raining hard. It had been a mild evening, the rain was warm and felt almost cleansing. Even though it was a downpour, the rain itself had a soft, almost velvety feel to it and with water streaming off my head and down my face, there didn’t seem to be any reason to hurry since we were already soaked.

I can’t remember exactly which block of Hastings Street we were in but I think we were within a couple of blocks of Campbell Street. Since we were on our way back, we were on the south side of the street. About a quarter of the way into the block, I happened to glance across to the north side of the street and I saw a woman standing in a doorway, leaning against the door or a wall with her head down, very still.

Everything seemed to slow at that point, at least that’s how I remember it, and my eyes were drawn to a needle dangling from her bare right arm. This needle piercing her skin also pierced my heart. I kept walking, taking unhurried, deliberate steps and watching her at the same time, expecting that any moment, she would move, but she never did. The other team members were talking with each other as we walked and I kept glancing back over my shoulder as we passed her and got father and farther away. I could still see her standing there, motionless when we got to the end of the block.
I felt tears welling up, she looked so pitiful, so small, and I also felt called to pray for this unfortunate person and that is what I did, silently closing my eyes and asking Jesus to take care of her, to bless her and protect her and to give her the grace to overcome her addiction. For whatever reason, it just did seem appropriate to go to her at the time. In the 20/20 hindsight that we all seem to have, I wish I had.

Over that weekend, I had a difficult time getting the image of that woman standing there in that doorway out of my mind. On Monday morning the core members of our North Shore Catholic Prayer Group met and during our intercessory prayer time, as I tried to pray out loud for her, I found I couldn’t. I only got as far as “Lord, I want to pray for the woman I saw standing in that doorway ...” and could go no further.

Later, I was able to share the story with my friends, but it still hurt every time I thought about it.
As the week wore on and the more I thought about it, I came to appreciate that our heavenly Father may have put this on my heart for a reason. We’ve all seen the nastiness that these streets can display, but somehow, this incident has reached out to me.

Judy and I had been walking as part of a street team for about eight months when this incident occurred. It came to mind that during that time I may have been suppressing my emotions, perhaps subconsciously. And at the same time, somehow believing that the thing I was seeing and experiencing out on the street were so far removed from my own personal life that they couldn’t possibly influence me. I never thought it was going to be easy, but certainly, I was stronger than that. Or was I?

I believe that our Lord wants all of the volunteers to know that it’s okay to be human, that it’s okay to have feelings, and to let them show. In fact, we should let them show, because it’s dangerous to keep them bottled up behind some narcissistic facade in a hopeless attempt to convince others that these things could never disturb us. But they do upset us. And they should concern us, deeply.
We have to break down the walls that we instinctively put up around our hearts. We have to soften our hearts. We must not only pray about the things we see and experience on the street; we should talk about them, and share these experiences with our loved ones, and friends. Sometimes they will be beautiful, wonderful sings and stories of our Lord working through the power of the Holy Spirit and other times they will be little clues letting us know that we must persevere, that the battle against evil is not over. We have to recognize our humanity and realize that it’s only natural for us to react, to have feelings and emotions.

When we walk, we should frequently be asking our Lord for the grace to love the way He loves. And because we are human, because we have these feelings and emotions, we also need His protection when we walk. We must be self-effacing. We should be docile to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants us to let Him into our lives, our hearts, our souls and our spirits. Let him in.

God Bless You,
Mark