still breathing

I feel out of place for feeling this way at Christmas. It’s something that I tried to ignore, but cannot.

For the past few years my family and I have gone to Atlanta to feed the homeless. Regardless if you’re a Christ-follower or not,  helping those less fortunate than yourself on a day when it’s easier to chill at home with the new toys Santa brought brings makes you feel some sort of satisfaction about yourself. Maybe it makes you happy to help. Maybe it humbles you. Maybe it’s a good deed that qualifies you as a good Christian.

This year it was different. I felt little joy going downtown. There were men who approached us smiling and exclaiming that they were blessed on Christmas day to recieve a warm coat and a sandwich, while others hid farther down in their blankets in emberassment as they refused our offer.

I stared out the window in silence as we pulled away from each starving soul. 

It didn’t settle well with me.

Maybe they had an addiction. Lost a job. Foreclosed on a home. Lost their family.
It could happen to anyone.

They don’t deserve to be where they’re at. And I don’t deserve to be in the position I’m in.

We dropped off water, food an clothes…and it may help them get through the day…but what about beyond that? We leave and get back on the interstate to head back to our lives of luxury and pat ourselves on the back for being a good person.

It didn’t make me feel good. Not this time.

My heart hurts thinking that real people with living souls are living to make it through the day. And here I am at times simply doing a routine from day to day because I’ve become too apathatic. For many who are homeless, they are just existing. Trying to stay alive. Sometimes I find myself living that way by choice.

Looking through the backseat window in silence, I somehow felt I had expereinced a small fraction of how God must feel.

It’s not an occasional act of kindness to help the oppressed, it’s a responsibility.

Respond.