“At the Shelters, When the Preachers Give You Jesus, They Give You Food Too”

I got to the office early one day this week and went to a little breakfast place close to the office  to eat and and get a cup of coffee. There was a woman there who looked to be in her mid to late 20’s and she had her some ear buds plugged into her cell phone and she was busy yakking away  in a much too loud voice which seems typical of people who use those kind of earphones. I was ignoring her even though I was irritated slightly that she was so loud.

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And then she started yapping away about she had much more valuable skill sets than what she was getting paid for. That kind of thing always amuses me so I started paying slightly more attention to her and noticed that she sounded like she was going through some sort of telephone interview or maybe a screening interview for a later real interview. So I felt kind of sorry for her for going through such a thing in such a public way. Of course she was the one being loud.

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Then she started answering questions. It was hard to tell since I was only getting one side of the conversation. I heard something to the effect of “Well, yeah, I’m living with somebody” and then “Well no, he is not my boyfriend but he thinks he is.” And then what me made almost spit my coffee all over the place was “Well, yeah I live with him but I try to downplay the sex but I need a somewhere to live until I can get a job where I can make enough money to get my own place so I put up with him.”

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About the same time another conversation picked up. There was a young guy who although dressed in clean neat clothes had a look about him that life was kind of hard for him at present. He was kind of hanging out at the back of the place where I was and another lady who seemed to be doing paper work. She asked him something to the effect of “I’ve seen you in here before I think.” And he said, “Yeah, I hang out in here quite a bit.” And she said “How come you are not eating anything?” And he said “Well, I don’t have any money but they let people have samples of coffee.” and she she said, how come you don’t have a job  and he said that he had problems with seizures.

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And then she said How long have you had seizures? And he “Well, I was okay but I went through a period of time when I was on a lot of drugs and that is when I started getting the seizures. And she said “What kind of drugs? and he said “Anything I could find, meth, the cigarettes they sell on the street,  alcohol. Whatever I could find, I tried. And she said are you still on drugs. and he said “No, I quit all that but I still have the seizures” and she asked if he was taking anything for them and he answered that he had some meds but he had no insurance so he kept his stash for when things got bad.

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So then she said that he had seizures because sin had entered his life. He said that he knew that. So she said that if he would pray with her for Jesus to enter his life then the seizures would go away and he said okay and she asked if he would pray with her. So she did the sinners prayer with him where he asked for Jesus to come into his life. Then she told him that he didn’t have to worry about the seizures any longer because Jesus would take the sin out of his life.

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And then he asked if he would buy her a bagel. And she said no! And he said that at the shelters when the preachers gave him Jesus they gave him food too. So she said, “Have you accepted Jesus before?” And he said, oh yeah lots of times. And so she said kind of angrily, “Why didn’t you tell me?” And he said “Because I’m hungry.” And she said “Well I’m not buying you anything” and he said, that’s okay, don’t worry about it. And she was like “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything.” And he said “Sorry!” and walked out.

I literally don’t know what to say about all this. Except I might have to quite listening in on other people’s conversations.

4 thoughts on ““At the Shelters, When the Preachers Give You Jesus, They Give You Food Too”

  1. Driller's Place

    Like you, I’m not sure what to say about this conversation. A misguided presentation of the Gospel coupled with a false acceptance of the Savior is a sad situation indeed.

  2. Gaelyn

    It’s a strange, and often scary, world out there.

    Love that shot of the spool. Funny to have to label it, but I get why. It is a strange world.

  3. Sallie (FullTime-Life)

    These are the kind of conversations novelists would keep in a notebook for future use! i want you to write the rest of the story.

    But I know what you mean — there are times when I enjoy eavesdropping and others when I wish I had some fake earplugs. Since we live in an urban apartment now and do a lot of City walks, I am hearing a lot more conversations like these that absolutely confound me .

    The sign on the spool is definitely a sign of the times. Sadly,

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