isolation

Cold. Shivering. Uncomfortable.
Can't sleep. Can't get warm. Cold to your bones, not cool.
Tossing and turning. Scrunched shoulder that don't quite fit on a park bench that was built only for sitting. Shifting, turning, arms wrapped around yourself stupidly trying to keep your body warm. No blanket, no bedmate, no pillow.

When you're homeless, you have nothing but yourself, your own body, and whatever you find to lie upon. No mattress beneath you, no person beside you, no roof covering you.

You.

It's you, yourself, floating in the midst of a wide world that is unsure of how to respond to your touch. Some will shrink away. Some will draw near.

Of the ones who come close:
Some will only stare.
Some will promise much.
Some have nothing to give.
A few have grace in abundance.

How will you know the peoples' hearts? How many will you trust before the hurt and fear become too great? What will you give up on first? the government? the church?

How many people will you see with kindness in their words and pity in their eyes? How many times will you be handed treasure that is already fading away?
And when the whispers come of something more, will you let your heart believe or will you shrink away from the fear of being rejected by one more?

I don't have all the answers. I hardly have any of them. I don't know how to love you the way you deserve. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know who you are or where you've been.

I want to know you.

But even without your story, I can tell you we are the same. We are both humanity. We need Christ the same way. Both guilty without Him and both clean if we come under the banner of His name. The ways of the world are nothing but walls and confusion.

Barriers have been put in place, and even now are continually being erected. They exist only to create distance between people. That is the enemy's goal.
We have not yet begun to see what is happening but we feel the effects of the walls between each other. We are at a loss of how to reach each other, and if we stopped trying, the walls would eventually grow until we would become blind all together and forget that we were made for community.
Made for it and cannot function without it-- oh how dangerous these barriers are. In separating us from each other how quickly they have separated us from our Father. We have forgotten what it is to do life with another person. Can we remember what it means to do life with Him?

We must come back to community.
It is what He is doing. It is where He is.

"For He Himself is our peace; who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall." Ephesians 2:15

The walls were broken the day He died, and if we looked with His eyes we would see only freedom. Our blindness has led us astray. Let us look again. Maybe we will finally see for the first time.

Humanity is family.

He loves us all the same.
He cares for us all the same.
He died for us all the same and wants us all the same.

[We have got to learn to love each other]