“There”s one over there, that green one.”
I looked across the snow-covered Milwaukee street at a late model sedan driven by a pleasant looking man in a business suit.”That”s an unmarked police car,” my friend continued. “I know every one in the city. You can tell by their license plate numbers. In the drug business you have to know these things or it means jail.”
Being a drug pusher on the city”s north side was just one of the past activities of my Christian friend. Add his having a live-in girlfriend, his alcohol abuse and his stealing, and you have a clearer picture of his lifestyle. That was before.
A Change of Hopes
Christ had changed all that. It was hard to believe that my companion had changed so much. Once he hoped only to make it through the day, now he hoped to live for eternity. Once he hoped only to evade the police, now he hoped to meet God.
It all started with a feeling that there had to be something better. There had to be something beyond looking over your shoulder for those special license plates, the morning hangover, the friends who came only for the party.
So he began to watch people, looking for somebody who could tell him about God. Rather than looking over his shoulder, he began to look up toward God and inside himself for meaning.
A woman named Frances worked with him at the warehouse. She was different. She was happy in an environment that smothered joy. She set her own standards in an office that sought to manipulate and twist. So one day my friend blurted out his feelings, “How can you be so happy? What makes you tick?”
Knowing How to Be Velcro
Frances knew that hope is like Velcro, it reaches out and grabs the people who want it but don”t know how to get it. She knew exactly how to be Velcro.
At first she made a veiled reference to the fact that she had a higher calling in life than work. He was interested.
Later she added that God was important in her life, and she tried to live the way he wanted. He was hooked.
Then things began to happen quickly: an invitation to the house, a meal together, a church gathering, a Bible study, Jesus.
My friend and his girl friend began to change. They threw out the drugs. They found a justice of the peace and got married. Hope was no longer found in a bottle or a pill, but the Velcro-like nature of a shy little secretary named Frances led them to a life worth living.
High Places and Higher Powers
One day another friend passed me a handful of nails. There I was standing on the roof of our new church building putting on shingles with an agnostic. He had been an atheist, but now he admitted there was some higher power. Getting on the roof with us to shingle was not what he had in mind, but in his search for hope in life he”d come across a flyer we mass mailed to his house.
He visited and met the same Velcro people. Six different people talked with him at length. One invited him over for dinner. Another asked him to come help shingle. He was amazed at people so open to new relationships. So he dug out his hammer and climbed on the roof.
There was more going on than driving nails through tar paper. Those of us who shingled with him sought out things we had in common. We talked about our problems, shared our frustrations, relied on our hope.
He found himself stuck to people of hope. He came with a hammer, an amazement about our openness, and a desire for hope. He left with friends, an invitation to a Bible study, and a glimpse of a better world.
Docking Procedures for Hope
People seeking hope must connect with people of hope. Each encounter offers the opportunity to rendezvous. Docking procedures must be worked out to link the hopeful with the hopeless.
A meal, an invitation, a willingness to listen, a happy smile in an unhappy place, an extended hand, a comforting shoulder-it”s all part of the Velcro that forms eternal links.
“The Velcro of Hope.” was originally published in 20th Century Christian (Sept. 1988) 21-23. Used here by permission.