Today on the way to the ‘to write love’ offices a homeless man asked a few of us for money, Lindsay (our program director) sat down next to him and asked his name. He ended up telling her to go away. 

The way she sat down, with her hands resting in her lap, I can’t explain how but it was written all over her how much she cared. The sitting down, starting a conversation, the risk of being rejected; thats the kind of action that costs you something. 

Asking his name she said after was about giving him dignity, as a person with a story; not a nameless face with a need. Watching it happen I didn’t understand how it made sense, but I bet it’s what Jesus would have done.

I still can’t entirely wrap my head around the purpose of starting the conversation, but I know watching her, something about the way she sat, it was so clear she actually cared. It is an uncomfortable thing to show someone you care; knowing they might throw it in your face, or leave you hurt as they respond in apathy. Sometimes it costs you your pride, other times it feels like it costs you everything- but it’s nothing that belongs to you anyway.

It’s nothing you won’t continue to be filled with as you pour out.

It’s nothing worth existing in you if you hold onto it. I think it ceases to exist in you if you hold onto it.

I want to learn to love, in spite of fear and awkwardness; and my own need for attention. I want to be about the conversations that ask someone else’s name and story. I want to be someone that doesn’t automatically think I understand the situation or the person. That doesn’t assume based on the obvious,  or hold back based on fear of rejection.

 I do not want to be friends with pride.

 I want that version of me to die; again and again as I step outside how I expect myself to respond, of what I think I am capable of, as I find I am being someone I don’t know, but like a whole lot better. As I learn how to be a friend to people, and not just expect so much from them. As I keep learning to love more like him.

I am so thankful for all of these small moments, for all of the people and the parts of this story, for the unrelenting force of grace as I continue to figure this out. I am never alone in this, I can not change of my own will; but I will pursue wholeheartedly he who changes everything.