Our Work is "For the one" - Mark

A couple of weeks ago, we met Mark* sitting in his wheelchair on a street corner several blocks down from our offices. It was obvious that he had just recently left the hospital. He was still wearing his hospital socks and ID bracelets…one of them clearly stating in all caps, “FALL RISK.”  Our team was on their usual Thursday streets walk and immediately noticed him. He was “the one" sitting alone, trying to turn away from the sun that was beginning to bear down on him. We weren't exactly sure how we could help him; we only knew that we were meant to.

Mark shared that a hospital van had dropped him off in front of Austin Street Center. The shelter was doing everything they could to find him a bed, but even their respite care beds were completely full, and they hadn’t been given any advance notice from the hospital that he was coming. This was not that unusual, we learned. It’s what is considered an “unsafe discharge,” and because shelters aren’t equipped to provide medical care, they are often forced to send people back to the hospital.

Mark was in pain, and when he gave us permission to look in his belongings, we saw in his hospital papers that he had a fracture in one hip and osteoarthritis in both. We were able to move him inside of the shelter so he could get cooled off and hopefully more comfortable. His only request was to be able to lie down. He had been sitting in the wheelchair for so long that everything was beginning to hurt more. Thankfully, our group was able to lift him out of his wheelchair and get him onto a mat. But it wasn’t without a few cries from Mark. He apologized for yelling and being short. He wanted to us to know that he was just overwhelmed and anxious. And then he made us laugh with his stories and dry sense of humor.

When you stop to help “the one,” you learn to sit with the good and the bad. The hip pain and the frustration, the jokes and the anxiety. The hospital papers that are hard to decipher and the feelings of helplessness that creep in. We do our best and let our friends know we are there to love on them as best we can. And we remind ourselves that we’re not the ones in control, anyway. Our work is to be the ‘hands and feet’ as best we can, and trust in the One who loves Mark as his beloved child to do the rest.

Our partners at Austin Street helped us make a plan to get Mark back to the hospital, but a different one. We talked him through the plan, and he agreed. When we told him one of our advocates was coming to pick him up in his car, Mark explained, “Well, good! Because your friends are now my friends.”

We got him back in his wheelchair and ready to leave. Another team member brought him a pair of shoes that he could have, given he only had his hospital socks. We also asked if we could pray over him before he left. He agreed and we thanked God for the blessing of meeting him and asked for God’s healing and protection going forward. He smiled, quietly thanked all of us and let us know he wasn’t sure how he had gotten so lucky to run into us that day.

We don’t always know the outcome for many of the friends we meet on the street. It's difficult to not know, so we trust that God is taking care of the next steps. We look for “the one” and we do what we can to help in that moment. And we give thanks that we serve a God who promises to be with Mark and all of our friends along their journeys. A God who has an intimate understanding of suffering and whose abundant love and grace will never run dry.

*name changed for anonymity