A few years back I felt that God directed me to go back to college to get Associate’s Degrees in Social Work and Substance Use Disorder. One day for lunch, I went to a Subway near the school to get a quick bite to eat. As I walked in the door I noticed a woman, mid to late thirties, sitting down at a table in the center of the lobby, and she was nodding in and out of consciousness. I recognized her condition because I used to see it in my mirror on a daily basis during an abysmal season of my life. She looked as if she ran out of whatever she was using and just trying the best she could to stay awake. Immediately I had flashbacks of how I used to get when I ran out of my drug of choice, meth. It was painful to watch because I remembered how I felt to only want one thing, not family, friends, food, and especially not God, only the next hit to lift me up. I sat there, prayed for her as I ate, and just watched the situation for 10-15 minutes. The employees and the other customers saw her nodding and pretended that she did not exist. She dropped her phone a couple times and made noises trying to catch it and all the people fought off the urge to look at her. I remember being the person that everyone pretended did not exist. Before I left, I went up to her and said, “I don’t know what was going on,” then I gave her a little book that I had and said to her, “Jesus loves you”. It may not seem like much, but I did want her to know that she DID exist, that she was loved, especially by Jesus. I wish that someone, anyone would have done that for me when I was in the midst of my addiction. I have taken to heart what is written in *1 Timothy 1:15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. 16 However, for this reason, I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.* My beloved, I have been all things unholy, if God can work through me, He can work through anybody. I am convicted by the words of Charles Spurgeon, “My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.” There is a difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I lived a lifestyle of alcohol abuse, drug addiction, and self-destructive behavior that lasted for long periods of wasted time, every sin common to man I have been a part of. For any that hear these words and are struggling, I want you to know that Jesus loves you and I love you too! These words do not come from sympathy, they are from empathy. May we all remember that even the person who is caught up in the world and all the bait of Satan is still a person loved by an Almighty God and that person needs to be reminded as often as possible, and so do some of us who have come through the fire. I love when people that have been through hell walk back into the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the blaze, for I believe that there are few causes that are so noble. In Christ Love, douglas. HE>i. pastord.blog

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