Sidewalk Conversations // 90320

I love the front row seat I have in the lives of some of our friends. Ray has walked such a journey over the years; addiction, arrests, temper issues. But he’s been “clean” for several weeks now and I can see he’s working so hard to turn a corner. He’s needed lots of Pay It Forwards but today it was so cool to see him Pay It Forward for someone else, actually 5 someone else’s. Then David came in and I held my breath as he seemed to crash a Thursday morning Bible study. Turns out the guys in the group invited him into their discussion. He was so loud I could hear him in the other room. I had to give him the “shush” signal to dial down the volume a bit. When the group left he came & sat with me. Whispering he said, ”sorry I was so loud, I just got all excited that they actually asked me a question, they really wanted to talk to me!!!” David is a good guy. He’s totally confused, and well overdue for a bath, but he has great taste in baseball teams. #goyankees. These guys are so often misunderstood, discarded and maligned, but at the end of the day they’re not all that different from you and me. They just want to be known, needed, & loved.