Grace, Mercy & Miracles

A Testimony of God’s Heart for the Hurting

I met a man on the streets one summer who was coming off heroin and going through severe withdrawal. The heat was unbearable, and I knew I could not leave him there to die on the pavement, so I made him get into my car.

I asked him what had brought him to that place in his life. He could barely speak, but he shared the deep trauma and wounds of his soul that he was trying to escape. He told me he had been sexually abused by someone who was still coming around their home as a friend of his mom. When his family discovered he was using drugs, they were so angry with him that they told him he had to move out.

He was not trying to do wrong. He was trying to escape a pain that was too heavy to carry alone. He had stayed silent about the abuse because he thought he was protecting his family, but that silence was destroying him. Instead of being protected, he was blamed, and that unhealed trauma became the doorway to fear, addiction and suicide attempts.

When I drove him back to his apartment complex in Mesa, drug dealers pulled up, and people emerged from hiding to buy from them. Then a little boy, maybe ten years old, knocked on my window and showed me the drugs he was selling to see if I wanted to buy some. I was shocked and looked at Philip in horror over what was happening. He quickly began apologizing as if he was responsible for all of the destruction happening in that community. I told him that none of it was his fault but it was more than just a little troubling as children were being consumed by the same darkness that was trying to destroy Philip.

I told him that I wasn’t there to judge him and that I couldn’t force him to do anything but if he didn’t want to stay there I would take him to a place to get help. He said that if he stayed he knew he would end up at the drug dealers begging for heroin, so he said he wanted to go with me.

I tried to get him into a recovery program, but no one would help us. Every door was closed because of technicalities. Eventually, I had no choice but to drop him off at a QT gas station and pray that God would continue the work He had begun.

As I drove home, I sobbed uncontrollably over what I had witnessed and how there was no help for this young man back then. My heart broke. I didn’t realize at that time but looking back can now see that was how God began to form His heart in me.
Behind every addict and every homeless person is a wounded life He created and loves so deeply that He sent His Son to carry their shame and make a way home.

I prayed nonstop for seven years or more for all of the things that the Lord would show me every day as we began walking together with the Holy Spirit leading my steps.

Long before addiction or homelessness appears, there is often abuse, silence, and a failure to protect the innocent.
Blaming others will never solve these issues no matter how much we want to point the finger and accuse others for not doing enough or not showing more compassion or not protecting the vulnerable more, none of that is the solution.
As I poured my heart out night after night the Lord was so gracious and merciful to answer every one of my prayers. But He did more than that, He visited me and told me that He wanted to answer the prayer that I kept asking about how to stop the evil causing so much damage. He said there is only one way to destroy evil completely and that is Love.