The Journey

Author - Mike Rush

I opened the door to our waiting room yesterday and spotted a familiar face on our couch. I greeted him and sat down. “I want to get into rehab,” he said, for not the first time. And he really wanted a shower, which is not a service we provide, and our friends at Bethlehem House don't offer until early evening.
Like the vast majority of our clients, he’s in between in his life. He’s in between sobriety 

and long-term drug addiction.  He's between homelessness and residential security; between poverty and self-sustaining; between a lost significant other, and a life on his own.
​So, we spent the day together and he volunteered his time on projects throughout. We talked about what could be a plan for his life. Get, and maintain, sobriety; maybe we could help you get into a facility. Obtain his Medicaid card, and his SNAP provisions, which our case management program could help him do. After those, secure affordable housing, just for you, where you could take care of just you.
I waited in the truck while he turned in his key, to an apartment on which he hadn’t kept up payments, to his landlord. I thought over his situation and prayed over his heart. When he returned, I said, “Just think what your life could be like when you’re sober, eating a good diet, and getting the sleep you need. Imagine that no one in your life manipulates you into doing something you don’t want to do. And you never make a decision out of guilt, or shame, or fear.”
Later, I dropped him, and the small bag he carried which held all of his worldly belongings, at Bethlehem House for a shower and maybe a meal and conversation. Before he got out of the truck I told him that I loved him, and that I was proud of the progress he’d made that day.
And as I watched him go, I hoped and prayed that he would follow through with his plan to stay at our warming station that night. And, that in the morning, he’d show up and we’d figure out another day together.
​-Mike