Dear Inner Circle,
In this strangely cold weather, it doesn’t take much to warm the heart. The mornings often provide some much-needed laughter. Occasionally someone launches into me mid-sentence, and this morning was no exception. I was being berated for some choice I had made musically, but also being reassured that it wasn’t as terrible as had just been insisted seconds before. The others who overheard wished me a good morning with the raise of an eyebrow.
I was then stopped in my tracks by a gentle giant—one who has been in and out of prison for most of his life. He pulled me aside: “You know what keeps me going?” He was busy pulling on some ill-fitting shoes as his long, freshly showered hair swished when he looked up to fix me in his gaze. “I once read that there are plans for me, ones that have a future with hope. That gets me through today and will hold me for tomorrow. You ever read that one before, Rev?” His soft eyes and tender smile immediately melted away the winter despair in my heart.
Then another lady grabbed me—one I hadn’t seen for a few years. She was dropping off some warm clothes to our very grateful front desk. We shared a cup of tea and some updates. She told me how, having been at rock bottom herself at times, she never, never gave up. It was the generosity and love shown by total strangers that got her through. She spoke tenderly of her now simple and beautiful life, full of reward, with her family back in her presence. She reminded me that if there’s ever value in hitting rock bottom, it’s learning that tomorrow can always bring new hope.
She told me how earlier in the morning she had picked some winter flowers, placed them in an empty jam jar, and sat gently on the edge of her daughter’s bed, catching her last moments of blissful sleep before she woke for school. What a gift, what a morning—so much better than her old life of waking up and looking for belonging by “shooting up” to keep the loneliness at bay. She’s now in a much softer place, no longer in her old underworld of prostitution and gangsters, trying to be part of their world, instead she is gently reconstructing one of her own.
They say that comparison is the thief of joy—but after this morning, I’m not so sure. Comparing to others is a misery, but there’s deep value in comparing to past versions of ourselves. It made me think: ‘Am I a better person than I was three years ago?’ Well, you’re certainly a little greyer and rounder, mate.’ Sometimes there’s an abundance of gold available here, and all before 9:30 in the morning!
Thank you my Inner Circle, so many of you are strangers to the people I am so lucky to share life with, yet it is through your generosity that Wayside gets to keep opening our doors to keep hope alive for another day,
Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,
Jon
Rev. Jon Owen
CEO & Pastor
Wayside Chapel
