Some stints of my life have dealt crazy decks of occurrence. But I’d be willing to say the past six months have dealt the most surreal occurrences with God and this thing called “earth,” that I’ve ever known. If God really is a person, He has a will. Never, though, have I so submissively attempted opening to This will (as oppose to mine), which again, has left me with the most unbelievable of seasons. This writing is done on the eve of a most bizarre and miraculous chapter herein.

The short of my last week is as follows: Tuesday night, went to play tennis with buddies from school, Todd and Jeremy. Stomach tightened up so bad that I ended up in the emergency room. Intersected paths with a meth-addicted, battered woman named Barbara. As each of us waited through many hours of triage and no treatment, we were able to hear bits of her story and gain a heart for hers—namely, the devastating memories her abuser Phillip. At some point in this night, Phillip showed-up. An altercation and final “split” left the three of us there with a homeless, wounded woman, high on Meth. This led to our first chunk spent searching sites and calling hotlines, all in hopes of caring for one woman. Shelter options left us stranded, ending this night at 3:30am in a Motel 6, laying on her bed with Mexican food and prayers (likely her first ever). We left her money for a cab, meant to deliver her to a recovery shelter in the morning. Our job was done…until we heard from her in the morning, explaining that the shelter was temporary and merely provided food and a bus ticket. Not much help for a woman who’s craving drugs and can easily find more lucrative options by sharing her body at any given hour or street corner.

Jeremy, Todd and I pulled away again from our “normal” lives, in order to love, and at this point, even like a woman. We were hopeful that day, but tired from a long night and wondering God’s thoughts on our role. The afternoon was spent over more meals and tears of rejection and shame. The LA shelter system—whether it be for battered women, or drug addicts—is hard for me to support anymore. We saw way too many rules that ruled over a heart, and hearts that were dead in their profession. Hearing Barabra rehash stories of suicide, rape, molestation and addiction…received by a dull voice of predetermined guidelines was nauseating, to say the least.

Thursday night we shared an emotional dinner together, where Barbara started showing signs of her human beingness—she was witty, intelligent, curious and beautiful. We were able to land her at a church that night, which had issues of its own, but for that night at least, they were a blessing to our quest—which at this point was finding itself extremely hopeless and wanting to run, on just about every front. The guys and I would have to spend a number of hours debriefing and praying and crying and asking at the end of every one of these stints with Barbara. We were exhausted, let alone hundred of pages behind on our normal roles in life. But as confusing and madly alone we felt in these hours, we knew we were to stay together and stay in the trenches of this story.

Hearing from her the next morning, however, our hopes plummeted more. She had skipped a trial date and called Phillip to come get her. When that interaction failed miserably, again, she called us. Said she’d been kicked out of the church, hadn’t called the shelters she was suppose to, and was wanting to use. More tired than before and downtrodden in our weakness and pain, we chose to step into another day with our prodigal friend. Seeing her was devastating—she was more hopeless and angry than us, and could’ve fooled anyone in claiming that she was sober. We sat in McDonalds and explained her options—which in our minds included 3 more shelter attempts, which by our track-record, would not work. Other than that, we’d agreed to take her to jail. Her only other option was moving back to the streets, or her abuser.

By God’s absolute grace, and I don’t say that lightly, I remembered a recovery home in Pasadena that hadn’t crossed my mind up to that point (had it done so any earlier, Barabra wouldn’t have been willing/able/ready to commit to its needs. As we sat there through another interview, and a send-off that said, “Call back Monday,” we were devastated. Again, by His miraculous grace though, God pushed the decision back to “Saturday,” and then eventually to, “Call back 30 minutes from now.” And oh what a 30 minutes those were! So much desire to hope, but so much more scarring that made full hoping feel impossible. (Story concludes in last blog...)