Today is the anniversary of the tragedy of ‘9/11’! God keep America!
Today is also the day when Marc’s homicide pre-trial hearing would have taken place. What a blessing the case is no longer hovering over our lives! I’m pleased with the general outcome, I feel there was enough justice, but I’m still tracking the defendants! I’m so aware of how fortunate we were with the people in PDX, how the defendants plead guilty! So many people are not able to find that peace in their lives after such a tragedy!
The main assailant in Marc’s case was a young homeless man, so homelessness has really been on my mind alot. The topic of homelessness is a hot issue with many now a days! It’s not an easy topic to discuss. From my experience with some church ministries for several years I noticed there were many different stories being represented in the homeless community. I felt compassion for some and was scared of and for others.
I checked out some statistics on the homeless population recently, I won’t go into details about families, as there are ministries and churches who deal alot with keeping the homeless family together. Most of the statistics deal with the states carrying the highest burden of care for them. Some of the stats cover age groups, some talk about the large number of Vets who are homeless!
What interests me most is the ’cause’ of homelessness! I’ve known friends in recent years who startled me by saying they had a homeless sibling, child! I was always aghast at how the issue is out there in our homes and people never share about it! It’s a shame Christians tolerate it in their families. I can understand if a child is completely rebellious or has deep anti-authority issues being kicked out … but only after enough parenting on education, work, drugs, sex, etc. And the parent was glad they gave lots of quality time, and told their child how much they mean to them!
I understand homelessness in this way ….. first, there are those on the street who are just rebellious, lazy, insolent people …. and they will even tell you so. There are some who are criminals, who’ve been in and out of jail or who have criminal attitudes towards society in general. There’s a group of people born into deep poverty or illiteracy who just drift into homelessness. Another sub group are kids who are sexually abused, treated violently, etc. and they leave home to ‘escape’. The mentally ill are becoming another sub group as the years go by. People don’t know how to deal with them in their homes.
Then there’s another little group, they have no desire to be on the street at all and are scared to be there. They don’t often know what is keeping them back in life, or their families are ‘forcing’ them to leave because they have legalistic expectations of their teen. Almost every family now a days is being stretched to the limit. There’s no room for failure, no time for mentoring a child. Dad’s and moms are angry over their child and towards each other, not knowing what to do. Some kids leave to get away from the feeling of being a problem to family and selves!
I’m believing right now that the young man who took Marc’s life was in this last group. From his letters and the little I know of his & his family life, the defendant was from a family who truly cared about their child’s conduct towards others in society. I pray for all of them as well, as we all are affected in some way by the epidemic in this nation of broken families, lives, homelessness. It’s not a bad thing to be broken, but some of us treat it like a crime! But …. ‘there’s no condemnation in Christ’!