A Broken Heart

While I was at the gas station today, this lady came up to me and asked me for money to feed her kids. I talked with her for a little while, praying while I talked to her, and I ended up offering to go buy her groceries and bring them back to her. She only asked for bread, lunchmeat, and ramen noodles- enough to make it to Friday when she got her paycheck. So I went and bought her what she needed, only to come back to find her gone. I drove around to the neighboring fast food restaurants to see if I could find her and waited at the gas station for a bit, but no luck. I don't know why it frustrated me so much. My heart felt burdened for her- here I was putting gas in my nice SUV, with a credit card at that, and she was just trying to feed her kids. And all I could hear in my head was, "feed My sheep" (different context, but the principles still apply). I prayed about what I would share with her about my faith when I gave her the groceries. I know that part of the reason why she even approached me was because I had a Baylor sticker on the back of my car. Which almost makes it worse. Because if she does show back up at the gas station, it just further tarnishes Baylor's reputation of its snobby rich kids. Sigh.

 

It's not the fact that I spent the time and money to get her a few groceries- it's the fact that I couldn't give them to her. So now I have some extra bread, lunchmeat, and ramen coming out of my ears. And part of me can't help but think, maybe I misjudged her and she didn't really need to feed her kids- she just wanted money and was perfectly content letting me drive off to buy unnecessary groceries. Which may be the case, but who am I to judge. I was being obedient to what God asked of me. But what I can't help but think that is even worse- her kids will still be hungry. I think this is going to be a challenging summer- I have already been approached more times in the few weeks I have been here this summer than I have my entire time at Baylor. I'm not really sure what God is trying to teach me in this.

 

And yesterday, I took a friend to the laundry mat, and I sat and talked with a beautiful 5-year-old little girl. You should have heard the things she told me about her life. She talked about how her mom had left her by herself at her house, had locked her in the bathroom. She talked about how CPS was called, how the police chased her mom, how she was now in jail. She talked about adults doing "nasty" things. All sorts of things. I wanted to cry right there. It broke my heart. It sure puts things in perspective- I came to the conclusion that if the only reason I didn't get the internship this summer and got stuck in Waco, Texas was so that a little 5-year-old little girl could have someone to talk to at the laundry mat, someone who could make her laugh and listen to her story and show her Jesus' love, I am completely ok with that.