Today’s route took me past a spot that’s often occupied by a woman who’s been part of Clarksville’s homeless community for years. Her personality is … interesting. She invents wild stories and is sometimes belligerent. Some might say she’s a bit difficult to love.

Obeying the directive to “love thy neighbor” comes easily sometimes, but other times — not so much. So it’s a good thing that love (like every other fruit of the Spirit) can be cultivated and strengthened.

I remember one of my first lessons in genuine, Christlike love. I was in my 30s and had volunteered a few times with a mission group in Nashville. One morning we boarded a bus, headed to Dickerson Pike, and parked in a dodgy part of town. The men and women who frequented that area began to board the bus, where the regular volunteers handed out free items and spent time in conversation. Their goal was to simply spread some love where it was lacking.

Among the day’s visitors was a woman named Sandra. She was a sex worker, about 40 years old. Have you ever seen someone who looked completely spent and broken but also like they could beat you to a pulp if provoked? She had that look. (Note: a life of prostitution does not turn a woman into Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. It does exactly the opposite, stripping the light from her eyes and leaving her bone weary, aged far beyond her years, and destitute of hope.)

A little later, I caught sight of Sandra again, and what I witnessed had a huge impact on how I would view servanthood and compassion from that day forward. Sandra was sitting on one of the benches that lined the walls of the bus, facing one of the female volunteers. The volunteer was holding Sandra’s hands while gently rubbing lotion into her rough skin. She chatted with Sandra while patiently working the hand cream into Sandra’s fingers, palms, and wrists. Sandra was disheveled and in need of a shower, and her hands were embedded with grime, but you wouldn’t have known it because the volunteer treated her with the same gentleness and honor that she would have offered her own perfume-scented grandma. I wondered how long it had been since Sandra had been touched with tenderness.

I’d never seen ministry that looked quite like that before. That dear volunteer, whose name I never learned, changed my life by demonstrating the acceptance and affection of God toward us broken, grimy humans. That experience influenced even my idea of “church,” and not long afterward I found a Christian community to call my own — one where people poured out their hearts and lives in service to the hungry, the addicted, and the poor. Every week they spent significant time in the trenches, teaching me what it truly means to feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and love the outcasts. Like I said, compassion, empathy, sacrificial living … these can be learned and cultivated.

I’m reminded of the time when a friend of ours named Lance explained why he loved my late husband (and Manna Café founder) Kenny. He said, “Many times I’ve seen Kenny wrap his arms around someone who was wearing tattered clothing, whose hair was tangled and messy, and who smelled bad — really bad. But Kenny didn’t think twice; he gave that person a bear hug like he would anyone else.” That, friends, is how it looks to love one’s neighbor.

Talk to you soon!
Vicki