Sometimes life just throws you a curve ball. You are expecting certain schedules, happenings, relationships. Your well-considered plans simply cannot materialize. The weather may not allow you to go on the hike or bike ride you were planning. The person with whom you’ve discussed professional issues is no longer available because of other interests or issues of their own. The church you’ve loved is embroiled in conflict. The toilet overflowed. Your vacation plans changed because of extended family needs. You get the flu. On and on.

Remember how frustrated and maybe even scared you got? You were angry that life as you expected it to be was just not cooperating.  How did you react?

Now…think about how life challenges would affect you if you did not have a stable living environment.  How would you handle the inconveniences and struggles of life if your basic human needs were not being met?  If you were poor or homeless, the weather may be something you have to endure…rain, heat, floods, freezing cold. Riding a bike may not be for pleasure but the only transportation you have. Therefore you ride whatever the temperature is.  You may have lost any professional contacts that you once had because you’re now ashamed to have fallen into the situation that you’re in. OR your professional advisor is the person you happen to be sitting next to at the soup kitchen and he tells you who is hiring unskilled or low skilled laborers that week. Your church may not embrace you because you smell. Its conflicts seem immaterial to you as you yearn to experience and know the love of Christ and other human beings who can embrace you no matter your situation. Overflowing toilets? What if you don’t have a toilet? What if you’ve reported plumbing issues repeatedly to the landlord who has ignored you? What if you don’t have a plunger to take care of the issue yourself or you cannot afford a plumber to take care of a serious problem? What if the person in the extended family who needs help is you?  What is a vacation anyway? Who can afford that? What do you do when you get the flu and cannot get to your hourly wage job or you have no way to visit a doctor or you cannot afford the over the counter medication at the pharmacy?

Life is challenging even when everything was seemingly going well. It becomes almost crippling when the supports we count on are no longer there.