Teaching and Modeling CompassionSample

Compassion to the Homeless

When our furnace died in sub-zero Chicago weather and my husband was away on a business trip, I lived three days with my house temperature at 40 degrees. I heated the basement with a large space heater to prevent pipes from freezing and kept the fireplace burning in the living room. Cold emanated from my walls.

On the night the furnace was replaced, my son and I went to a restaurant to celebrate while the house warmed up. As we parked our car, I noticed a pile of blankets on the sidewalk in front of a store. Then the pile moved. “There’s someone in there,” I told my son, shocked that anyone could live through a subzero night on the sidewalk.

Many of us struggle with how to help the homeless or that person holding a sign at a busy intersection. Is it helpful or harmful to give them money? Do we just take the risk and hand them a Twenty, do we offer to buy them a sandwich, or do we stare straight ahead? Many times, I admit I choose to look straight ahead. But on this frigid night, I chose to offer something tangible. Before the waitress brought us our check, I ordered an extra pizza and collected napkins.

Outside, we approached the pile of blankets. I told the person I had food for them. A hand reached out to grab the pizza box and a woman’s voice thanked me.

A woman was going to sleep outside on a sub-zero night on a cold sidewalk with no protection when just being near the ice-cold walls inside my house had chilled me to the bones.

I drove away deeply grieved.

On that night my grown son was with me, but how much more powerful would the moment have been if the younger version of my son had participated in buying an impromptu pizza for a homeless person? We have the chance to show our children what it looks like to be the hands and feet of Christ - the Christ who saw the crowds and “felt compassion on them for remaining with him for three days and having nothing to eat.” Matthew 15:32