Yesterday. Driving past the 99 and I-5 cut off, there was a young black girl walking north on the side of the freeway. Middle of nowhere, thin, dirty, amped up and walking fast like she was tweaking. Holding a bundle of her possessions with both arms, hugged across her chest. 12 miles from anything. I sped past and just burst into tears.
What am I supposed to do? I can't pick up a girl like that in the work truck. What if something weird happened? What if she was to scratch me up and say I tried to molest her?
All these thoughts. Anyway, I could not do nothing. I flipped around after Mettler and drove back on the frontage road. When I got to the Tejon outlets I turned around and came back north. She was speedwalking, obviously on meth. I stopped ahead of her, rolled down the window, and waited for her to walk up, trying not to look scary.
"Are you OK?"I asked when she got close.
"I am OK," she giggled and kept walking.
What else am I supposed to do? I can't make her get in and take a ride.
I, in retrospect, I think I was answered by a demon. I didn't address the young lady directly. I didn't forbid an evil spirit from answering me. If she was possessed by something more than addiction, that spirit is the one who answered me - yes, that evil spirit is more than OK – perfectly happy.
I prayed that someone, maybe a woman, someone more – I don't know, inviting? – could pick her up. I maybe wasn't the right person. But I prayed that someone would be.
Today: Morning watch: I got on the floor and began to pray. "What is on your mind, God?"
I thought of the young girl on the freeway yesterday - and immediately cried, and cried out, "Yes, she is on my mind too."
I got an image – a razor sharp still image – of her, just a crumpled heap of black hair and rumpled clothing lying in the drainage ditch along the side of the freeway, on the traffic side of the barbed wire. It was a very clear picture. This made my heart frantic.
After some mental wrestling – "I can't be late for work. What if I find her? What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to take her?" – I realize that I had time to at least look. What if God was giving me this image because there was no one else to help her - no one else willing?
So I got in the truck, and drove so I could watch the roadside and the drainage ditch all the way south, just in case she had crossed over – and picked it back up at the Tejon outlets and drove north. I watched the ditch on the side of the road the whole way.
I did not find her.
What does this all mean?
First, I was tempted to see this as a no-win situation. Mostly, because with such a clear word of knowledge picture, does not finding her show me that I cannot hear and cannot see? Today, yeah. I saw something, but not from God. ...Maybe?
Today's morning watch was spent in the truck, worshipping God by watching for someone down and lost in the weeds by the side of the road. It's really not such a sacrifice.
There is a lot of win in this. One, she is not lying broken on the side of the road. Knowing that is better than not knowing, and wondering.
Two, I demonstrated to the Lord and to myself that if I do have a picture, I am willing to act on it in obedience. There will come a day when I do see, and when I do, I will not only see, but I will see and act.
Three, I am feeling. I have a better sense of the Father's heart – a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone. Win, win, win.
And, win; my hope is that my prayer yesterday, that someone better than me would come along and pick her up, must have been answered in hope.
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