$17:50

Have you ever had one of those encounters, which changed your heart, well this one changed my heart and I thank God for it. I was riding the L Train heading to O’Hare airport. As I was sitting there a young man started to yell, so that everyone on the train could hear him. "Excuse me" he yelled, "my sister and I are homeless, we split up this morning so we could both try to collect money so we could afford to stay in a room tonight. We found a room that cost 35 dollars, so we each need to collect $17:50." I was somewhat taken back by this, you see the man was in his early to mid 20’s. He was a good-looking young man even though he had not taken very good care of himself, not the type of person I thought would be doing this. As he was yelling and asking for money, I thought to myself, how did he end up homeless? How can he not be ashamed? I would be humiliated if I have to do that. I also thought, what if he is lying and just getting people to feel sorry for him. What is he going to do with the money, does he really have a sister? All these thoughts where going on in my head. Then I just stopped and I asked God to help me. This was my prayer, "God I don’t know what to do, I’m not sure if this young man is telling the truth, I'm just not sure and I don’t know what to do." As I was praying, suddenly all I could think of was the verse that said, "Whatever you do to the lease of these." Over and over again this verse ran across my mind. My prayer continued, "God I have thirty-seven dollars in cash in my wallet, I’m not sue what I should give." But the verse was all I heard, "Whatever you do to the lease of these." So I called the young man over and I gave him two dollars, I thought to myself, that’s more than most people, would give. The young man took the money and thanked me saying “you are my first dollars.” As he looked me in the eyes my heart broke for him. He continued to yell asking for money, he said "please anything would help." He said, "even if you have a penny, that would help." I noticed the guy sitting next to me reach in to his pocket. He called the young man over and gave him a penny. I could not believe it. Why would he do that? It was almost as if he was trying to hurt the young man, to make him feel less than. I became so angry at the man's actions. I wanted to say, "cant you see that he is already down; you don’t need to rub it in." But the young took the penny and said, with what I thought was complete sincerity, "thank you so much" and he walked away. As he was walking away, my heart wanted to do more for him. So I got up, caught him and gave him the twenty-dollar bill. Tears came too his eyes, I said "God bless you", and he said "thank you so much, God bless you." And thats exactly what God did for me, he blessed me; he gave me the gift of this young man. God on that day gave me eyes to see, and a heart to care. My pray is, that young man will find in Christ, all that comfort he is looking for.