I know it's literally been years since I last blogged on here and for that I apologise, but last night I had one of those earth-shattering, life-defining moments where God breaks in and changes your heart forever, and I really needed somewhere to write it down! And it was whilst sat on the floor in the pouring rain with a homeless man and two atheists.
Allow me to set the scene; having spent the evening at Meadowhall shopping centre, I was making my way home through snow and then torrential rain, but when I got to the safety of my bus-stop opposite the cathedral, I noticed a guy sat on the floor outside McDonald's in a hi-viz jacket and shielding his legs from the rain with cardboard. Something in me told me I needed to go and speak to him, so I watched my bus sail past and ventured back out into the rain to go to him.
He was asking for money so he could buy copies of The Big Issue, but being that I had no cash on me, and tend to avoid giving money, I instead offered to buy him a meal. After re-emerging onto the street with a cheeseburger, I sat down on the soggy ground next to him and he told me how he had ended up losing his home and partner, lost all his benefits and now sleeps in a car park by night and begs in the day. His clothes were soaked through, and his face was covered in deep grazes and cuts. We spoke together for a while and I asked him if he'd like me to pray with him.
"Oh yes love, please do. I'm a Christian too." He responded, so I put my arm around him and began to pray. No more than a few seconds in, two men walking down Fargate spotted us and came over. They asked what he was doing out in the rain and he politely responded with an abridged version of what he had just told me. When they turned to me and asked me what I was doing, he replied for me:"She's come to pray with me."
And suddenly the two lads who had come over were telling us that they were atheists, and poured out their lives to us, telling us why they couldn't believe in God; about being in the army and suffering from illness and loss and seeing the cruelty of the world. What came next astounded me. The man sat under a piece of cardboard, without a safe place to sleep, or a change of clothes, or a person he cared about left in his life turned to the man who had been pouring out his pain and said "Pal, you need to meet Jesus. He loves you and he has a plan for your life, and he has a plan for mine." Then he turned back to me. "You carry on praying now love." I finished, in tears, my heart breaking for his situation and his faith. He thanked me profusely and asked for my name. "Ah, Julia. I'll pray for you tonight."
As I left him, still sharing the love of Jesus with those two men, my heart was ripped to pieces and I burst into tears. I stopped because I thought I could help him; that I could show him a bit of who Jesus is. How wrong could I have been? He revealed Jesus to me in a far greater way than any sermon or bible verse has ever managed. I walked away from him having been truly humbled, soaked to the bone and thanking God for the privilege of meeting him, and all that he ministered to me.
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