Advent Conspiracy...where we are headed this Christmas

For the last 2 days I've had the chance to lay on my couch in silence hoping for the always relished and all too unusual mid afternoon nap.  As I lay there in silence though, the thoughts in my head raced at a pace too fast for my heart to keep up.  Apparently, that beloved nap will have to wait for another day.  

Why is it that I can see something every day and not notice, but then all of the sudden be burdened by the same sight another day so deeply that I can't sleep?  I'm thankful for the burden.  In some ways it makes me feel alive. It pushes my heart and mind to new levels of trust.  But perhaps most importantly I am forced to seek truth, real truth about the heart of our Jesus who loved us in the deepest of our ugliness.

I am talking about the homeless.  The panhandlers on the corners who sometimes limp from war wounds or laugh from either illegal substance or debilitating mental issues.  Sometimes they carry an air of laziness and entitlement and sometimes all out shame.  I am talking about lovely human beings created by God who have found themselves in some of life's toughest of circumstances.  Judge as I may the poor choices some of them have made,  I am struck lately how like them I feel. 

Socially unacceptable.  Check.  Regret over poor decisions.  Check.  Guilty from past mistakes. Check.  Fear that others might know what I don't want them to.  Check.  Wishing for more.  Check.  Waiting for hope to be fulfilled.  Check.  

I can't begin to say that I really know the heart of a homeless person, but I can say that as a human being, I am no better than they.  And the God of goodness, kindness, and love that is not bound to justice or logic or good decision making or me working toward the "right goals", reached out to touch my life with  His nonsensical grace.  

Now what am I supposed to do with this?  These feelings of connectedness to people who I share little to nothing else in common?  Well, I am asking.  My head is full of ideas; thus the sleepless nap time hour.  I mull them around in my head dreaming of what it would look like to reach out, to serve, to simply give.  

I don't imagine life change for them.  That is certainly not within my power to do.  But even in my dreaming, so far with very little action, my heart is heavy with love and burden and compassion.  So heavy that I almost don't like it.  It's bothersome.  It's getting in the way of my life and I'd rather it go away some days.  But yet again, this burden is giving me life.  It is giving me perspective and it is giving me more of the things my soul truly longs for; vision and knowledge of my unlikely Savior Jesus who came into my stinky, dirty, shameful life and gave me oh so much more than spare change or a token granola bar.