No Getting Used to It

***this is a re-post from my old blog site***

There she was, lying on her side on a piece of cardboard, sleeping. In front of her a baby bottle half-filled with juice and a box for people to drop money in. She must have been barely 18-months old. She was "sleeping" so soundly, she was so still, that I had to look hard to be sure that she was breathing. Nowhere to be found was any adult.

Believe it or not, sites like this are "normal" here in the city and always stir up a riot of conflicting emotions inside: anger towards a mother who would do this to her child; compassion and heartbreak for the state of need; and helplessness in what to do in the face of it.

I'll never forget one day when it was over 100 degrees and two children were "sleeping" on their cardboard in the scorching heat, with no shelter or even water, while another begged for money. In other places in town beggars will carry their inconceivably passive infants in their arms (or sometimes dolls--pretending that they're infants) and weave in and out of traffic begging for money. Children also work the cars at stoplights, washing windows with dirty water and rags--whether you want them to or not. Then they practically hang on your windows until you give them money.

I was in one persons car where the child hurried to the front of it as the driver tried to pull away. The pre-teen put his hands on the hood and pushed--as if to stop us from driving forward.

I've also seen the children literally hang on foreigners legs begging for money while another one tries to pick their pocket! And still others will even dumpster dive regularly to get cardboard and other "recyclables" or even food that the rest of the community has cast off.

In many ways these people seem like the "cast-off's" of the community itself.

Thus is the situation that we all face in one manner or another no matter where we live. Do you walk on by? Do you give money? Do you give food? People say that giving money only perpetuates the problem. Yet Jesus says to give to each who asks of you. How can I walk by? How can anyone?? But what can be done?

Jesus would talk to them, would meet them where they're at. He'd touch their hearts because He knows them. He'd offer to them Living Water and the Bread of Life. He'd introduce them to the Father. But I don't even know their language (I've learned a different one). When I do give water, juice or bread, do they know that it's given in Jesus' name? Is it enough?

These are not questions that I think I'll ever be able to answer. There was just something about that little passed-out toddler that tore even deeper into my heart than usual. This is something that we face here every day, and personally, I do help as the Lord leads, but at times like the other day, it's just so hard to take it in. It's something that I'll never get used to... though, perish the day I do.