The Woman Across The Street

I often find myself  down at a coffee shop in Puyallup on Friday to write, think, blog, etc. It’s kind of my my little get away. There are plenty of coffee shops closer to home, but a friend of mine runs this shop and it’s in a great location downtown so I like to make the trip down there.

On several occasions I have seen a homeless woman sitting across the street tucked up again an old mini-mart and I have felt compelled to buy her a sandwich or a cup of coffee, but fear consumed me and I never took action. Well, today I saw her again and I felt the same epic battle of  compassion and fear raging inside of me. I wanted so badly to help and yet there was this fearful paralysis that was trying to keep me seated comfortably at my bistro table.

However today there was victory over fear! I bought her a salad and a bottle of water and walked across the street to bless her with a healthful meal.

I’m posting this not to pat myself of the back because I almost didn’t win the fight and on other occasions I have been completely defeated. I’m posting this because I think we all need a reminder of how badly we need to kick fear’s @$$ (if the poorly encoded profanity bothers you I’m sorry, but that’s how serious I believe we need to get when it comes to overcoming fear).

We need to man up and woman up and buy salads and bottles of water. We need to give with cheerful hearts. We need put some action to the faith that we profess to have.

“Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.” – James 2:26

What steps are you going to take this week to kick fear out of your life so that you can buy salads and water?