City Gospel Mission

Ok let me rewind to about four years back or so...

There was this girl that I really wanted to date named Melissa. She asked me one day if I would like to come serve food to the homeless downtown on that friday night. I thought she was kidding at first, but she wasn't. I proceeded to ask her how much we got paid, then she laughed. I thought to myself, "serve food to homeless people for free? This must be a joke. No way. Absolutely no way. Time is money and I'm not spending my friday night doing that of all things."

Ok let's go to the weekend of March 9th or maybe March 16th of 2008. I walked in my church for one of the first couple weekends there and asked a woman named Jamie who seemed at home there, very comfortable on a couch reading a book, how to get connected.. the place seemed so big that I figured it would be impossible to get connected with it as I was from a church of roughly 300 people when I was younger. She said to volunteer, and I did just that.

It's about 17 months since then that I write this. Wow, what an experience. Volunteering is just so awesome, and it's me that gets blessed more than anyone else. I've been blessed with some really fun opportunities to volunteer and it's just a huge blessing every single time. Now, I'm doing City Gospel Mission on friday evenings.

I'm not sure what all they do at City Gospel Mission but I can tell you what it did for me the first weekend in.. I had the opportunity to see where I could be if I continued in my substance abuse.. I could be homeless, living in a shelter - or much worse, on the street or in the park. I could be losing my health, wondering where my next meal will come from, worrying about my saftey, looking for my next pill or drink or hit... no hope in sight.

Some of these people still are smiling though, and I can't help but all the smiles can't be fake. I can't imagine smiling in a position like that, but some of them do. I think what I see is God in them... yeah, I'm quite sure of it. They have nothing, but He's still with them, carrying them, and somehow - they know it.. some of them do. What a blessing it is... how it causes me to realize how blessed I am.

As I think about experiences like this it makes me feel (for a moment) like.. forget about the clothes, car, all those material things. I just want more of you God... I love you so much Jesus.