If I Were Homeless

Sometimes in ministry it helps me to serve others by putting myself in their place. This is by no means a complete and accurate picture, but if I imagine that if I were not saved and homeless I would ponder how I got there –at least for a while until it just became a long inescapable reality. What would the most desperate and dire situation be?  This is all that I could bring myself to envision…

If I were homeless, it wouldn’t be a sudden plunge—it would be the slow unraveling of everything I thought was secure. But one morning, I might still wake up to find myself in a different world, where “home” has slipped through my fingers.

It could have started with the bills that crept higher each month, inching beyond my paycheck until they piled up like a wall. Perhaps it was my wife’s illness—just a few weeks’ leave that stretched into months—and in that time, her paycheck stopped, while the rent soared anther $500 a month. Nowhere else in town was affordable, and the only option was to keep stretching what little we had left, fraying thinner and thinner. My own income dwindling, my time being consumed by having to take care of my wife, all three children, the home, all the responsibilities…and trying to work too.

Maybe we’d find temporary shelter in a cheap motel, scraping together change for one more night, trying to keep the kids from seeing our worry. But the money would run out, and we’d end up in our car, five of us packed into that tiny, enclosed space that would feel smaller by the day. We’d hold on to that fragile lifeline for as long as we could afford oil changes and repairs, but eventually, the car would break down. Then what? It might get towed away, taking with it the last piece of something like a home.

If we were lucky, we might get our names on the shelter’s waiting list. But that hope would feel distant, buried under a timeline of six to nine months. How do you survive half a year with children, with no roof, no privacy, no certainty? And when there is no longer a place for them to feel safe and loved, someone would come to take our children. They would place them with strangers, split them apart.

The children would have very little to hold onto in this new, strange life. Their plush toys, their dolls, their Legos, their small treasures—all left behind, lost along with any sense of home. We would have nothing either. No photo albums, no mementos, none of the little pieces that remind us who we are and where we came from. It would feel like devastation—no history, no proof we had lived or loved, as if we were forgotten ghosts. It would feel as if our lives had been wiped clean, our very existence erased, with nothing left to prove we were here or that our story ever mattered.

What would it be like to watch our kids drift away, knowing their pain as they’re separated, fearing they’d feel abandoned, lonely, unloved? I think it would break me in ways I cannot imagine, adding a new depth to the heartbreak of being without shelter. There would be no way to tell them that we were trying to hold on, that we had done all we could. They would feel forgotten, while we watched helplessly.

And then there would be the holidays—those days that once gathered our family close in warmth and tradition. How would it feel to spend those days with no family to visit, no meal to share, no gifts to give each other or anyone at all? Would we dare even think of the children? The thought of their pain, of their loneliness, of them spending the holidays in a strange home, aching for us, would be almost unbearable. We would remember each holiday knowing our children were somewhere out there, hurting, separated, unable to understand why we couldn’t hold them close.

Still, I’d try to keep my head up, even if just for a while. I’d try to make connections with anyone who could help—a store manager, maybe, who might let us have expired food or give us medicine. I’d find places to wash up, try to keep our appearances just right so we might blend in, not stand out as “homeless.” Yet, I think shame would gnaw at us; we’d feel too embarrassed to admit the truth to those we once knew.

Eventually, our phones would be cut off, isolating us from the world even more. No way to reach family, no chance to ask for help or keep any semblance of a normal life. Every job would become impossible without clean clothes, an address, a phone number, a way to get there. And so, the last thin thread connecting us to who we were would break.

We would probably try to make friends with other homeless folk. It would never be a deep and meaningful connection that humans so desperately need. I mean, how can you trust anyone. They would be the same, untrusting, constantly in “survival mode,” focused on self-preservation, and all that sitting above their buried emotions of anger and resentment.

We’d start to drift, spending long hours in places where we could escape the elements—a library, a bus station—becoming invisible, part of the background no one notices. Maybe, at times, I’d have to beg for the things we’d never dreamed of lacking: basic items like hygiene products, aspirin, and food. Maybe we’d have a tent, a last, fragile scrap of shelter, hidden in some woods. Until, inevitably, someone would find us and move us on again, bulldozing the campsite, erasing what little we’d tried to call home.

Meanwhile, our children would grow older somewhere else. They’d carry our absence with them, perhaps missing us with aching hearts, or maybe resenting us, believing we just didn’t try hard enough or didn’t love them enough to make it work. And one day, they’d move on, and we’d become fragments of memories they rarely revisit.

As time went on, survival itself would take a harsher turn. We’d find ourselves going through garbage, searching for anything useful—maybe a scrap of food that wasn’t too spoiled or dangerous, just something to sustain us a little longer. We’d grow disheveled and dirty, with rotting teeth and unwashed skin, each day taking us farther from any resemblance of who we once were. We wouldn’t even bother to hide our bad breath because there’d be no one left to speak to, no one who could bear our company. And in this state, would we still look at each other the same way? Would we still embrace each other, or even give a kiss, or would we be so ashamed and worn down that even our love couldn’t cross the barrier of our own filth and despair?

Over time, we would be broken. My wife and I, worn down from years of struggle, would bear the weight of our suffering on bodies that could take no more. Sickness would come, or injury, without care or respite. And then one of us would be left alone. It would probably be her—I’d be the first to go. And my thoughts, my last, fearful and tearful thoughts, would be for her: that she would face what we could never shield each other from. I would revisit all the feelings of failure once last time…failure to protect and provide for my family, failure to keep them together, to keep them safe, to keep them secure, to make them feel loved and valued, leaving a legacy of broken hearts and despair.

This is not a fantasy. It is a reality that thousands upon thousands face every day. National Homeless Awareness Month is a time to see those who are unseen, to recognize that homelessness is not a singular story or a quick fall. It is a long, painful process of loss and survival, where every ounce of dignity must be fought for, every act of kindness treasured. If we look, if we understand, maybe we can change this reality for someone else before it is too late.

We are asked to give so much everywhere, every day. Please consider including local efforts among your holiday giving this year. If you’re in Lincoln County, please give thought to supporting 2 Shirts Ministry, Journey of Hope, Hesed House, and Christian Ministries. Every dollar has a major impact.

Our prayers that you will be spared such a fate,

God Bless you all.

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