True life stories from Abused Teenagers and Women in Shelter.

So, it’s another Friday evening, I am super exhausted from bike riding with the kids! But, if you are reading this: You probably didn’t plan anything distinctive for tonight or you’re on your way out or to bed, or still deliberating on both. Whatever it is – Have you ever considered…

“Friday night at the Shelter? Dinner, Bingo, Movie and a lot of real life” D-R-A-M-A”

For us in the pews, testing ourselves must include deliberating about our vocations and whether we are called to missions, or to a life of dedicated service to the needy, or to creating reminders with art and culture of the gospel’s transcendent, everlasting hope.

Discovering a radical faith may mean revisiting the ways in which faith can take shape in the mundane; it almost certainly means embracing the providence of God in our witness to the world.

The Good Samaritan wasn’t a good neighbor because he moved to a poor part of town or put a pile of trash in his living room. He came across the helpless victim “as he traveled.” We begin to fulfill the command not when we do something radical, extreme, over the top, not when we’re really spiritual or really committed or really faithful, but when in the daily ebb and flow of life, in our corporate jobs, in our middle-class neighborhoods, on our trips to the mall or Disney World—and yes, even short-term mission trips—we stop to help those whom we meet in everyday life, reaching out in quiet, practical, and loving ways.

I volunteered to spend an evening with some teenagers undergoing psychotherapy evaluation from molestation and sex addiction in order to finish a book I was writing.

So, I met with Arianna at a shelter I was assigned to sometime ago. She just turned 16 and was excited about getting a new tattoo. Through our conversation and her open hysteria about my sing-tune accent, she’d mentioned being raped at ages: 9, 10 and 11…

(To be continued next week Friday)

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