Far too often I write only about the struggles we face with our farm, the Heating and AC Business and with Sam’s Place. Far too often I fail to write about the goodness of GOD.
Today I want to write about the GOODness we see! Unfortunately, I can’t always write about the success stories and positive things without violating the privacy of our guys. You see, to write about the successes at Sam’s Place we first need to identify just where in life a guy was at when he first moved in. It can be a challenge to write a generic accounting of the history of a person when the details are so easily identifiable.
I can try to write in a generic format, but that completely eliminates the power of the story and it sounds like this: “We have a person, they succeeded in doing chores for the first time” when it should sound more like : “We have a gentleman that came to us a year ago, he struggles with self care & remembered to shower on his own. He has lived this way for years & without consistent reminders and prompts, he would likely still have no progress in this area of life. But today he is doing dishes without any reminders and takes a shower at least twice a week, cleans his own room, changes his clothes and bedding, and we never give a reminder to do them.”
Or another story might sound like this: Yesterday in my morning group on “Wisdom studies” (currently we are looking into the book of proverbs) we closed with a song… “This little Light of mine”! It’s a great group and we all learn so much. We talk about the personification of wisdom and folly. We discuss how wisdom looks in this modern culture, how to apply it to choices we make today, and what we need to do to carry wisdom into our futures.
You see? It’s not the kind of report that sounds “awesome”… its the little things we might take for granted, its daily reminders for months, its not “glamorous”… its basics, monotonous, dreaded daily reminders to make the right choices, make positive changes and become a person that can meet their own basic needs…
But not everyone has the same challenges. Some guys do great at staying clean, some guys are perhaps overly meticulous at cleaning, perhaps to the point of “obsession”… perhaps so obsessed they can’t do anything that is outside the “normal” and then change happens! They don’t know exactly how to handle this “randomness”… being tempted to fall back into a more destructive behavior like drugs in order to cope with the change.
I don’t want to write anything too specific as the guys might read my blog post or somebody else reads it and mentions the post. I guess in plain language, I want our guys to always feel like the specifics of their lives are protected. I never want to reveal something personal in a public setting like a blog.
I guess what I am saying is, I love helping guys out and being part of them getting life on track. We have double the wins than setbacks.
But then there is that one day, the day that you just want to say “ENOUGH”! That “one star google review that comes in a month after they move out. A month after you do everything to help a guy get on his feet? A month after you take a financial hit from him not paying for his services?… I fed him, gave him a comfortable place to sleep, shower and met all his needs in the house. He stiffed us on payment, wreck our stuff and then a one star review? Today I struggle with why he hates us? Why after all we did to help him, met his needs and went way above what we are required to do, and then this?
Even though I struggle with the “why” today, I know our LORD is bigger than this. I know this is a spiritual battle and not one of flesh and bone… This seems like a proverb is being written “NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU HELP A SELFISH MAN, IT IS NEVER ENOUGH, AND IN THE END HE WILL DESPISE YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID NOT DO”
Keep Strong in the LORD and remember, OUR REWARD IS IN HEAVEN (and that’s a good thing, because there ain’t much reward in what we are doing on earth)
In service, C.