It's A Wonderful Homeless Life

Every year, my family gets together to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve and when I met Clarence outside of the Nashville Rescue Mission (Nashville, TN), this was the first image that popped into my mind, Clarence: The angel-in-training who saves the main character in the story, George Bailey, from killing himself and convinces him that life is worth living.

...In a way, Clarence from Nashville played the same role for me, but this story is not about me.

Clarence approached me before the food was served on the streets outside of the Nashville Rescue Mission. He got straight to the point - "Hey man will you pray with me". I said sure and we walked over to the corner of the parking lot and he poured out his heart to me. I'm not going to get into the details, but I want to share the basic story that he told me so that some of you can understand just how close to homelessness you really are.



Clarence grew up living an "average" life in a small town outside of Nashville. He got married young and had a family. He worked an honest job and raised his 2 kids. Then one day, Clarence was hanging out with "the wrong crowd" and got into some trouble. Normally, this would not be a problem, except that Clarence couldn't afford a lawyer or the fines, so he decided to "sit the time out" in jail. He served an 18 month sentence in order to pay off the debts. While serving this sentence he had been in contact with his wife and family occassionally, but not often. Once he got out of jail, he went to the home where he had been raising his family... To his surprise, the house was empty. It appeared to have been vacant for quite some time.

He looked everywhere for his wife and kids. All over town. Couldn't find them.

His wife had stopped paying the mortgage on the home - So the bank foreclosed.
She had stopped paying the bills - So they all went on his credit.
She had taken the kids and all of the furniture, so he had nothing left.

With no money in the bank, and tens of thousands of dollars in debt, Clarence stepped back into life.

The only place that he could go? The Nashville Rescue Mission.

And that is where Clarence is today. That is where he has been for the past several years. That is where he will remain for the next several years. But he still sees Hope. He still has Faith. Clarence told me, "Man, the day that I got out of jail and realized what had happened was the day I knew that I wasn't in control of my life - God is - every day since then I have trusted Him with everything, please don't forget to pray for me because I know He is listening."

The amazing thing.. Clarence still thinks It's A Wonderful Life

Let's pray for Clarence this week.