Why are you a poverty fighter? Does your heart break to see folks being unable to flourish because they have no stability?
When my daughter was three years old, we started teaching her some basic gardening. We started by planting some beans because they would bloom quickly, and she could see the results. The whole idea was mind-blowing to her three-year-old self. We bought some packages of seeds of different types, and she was able to see the fruits of her work. She was nearly obsessed with this newfound power of being able to nurture life.
One day I was walking with her through a local store, and she noticed some bird seed. Excitedly, she showed me the package and looked up at me with big brown eyes. I knew what she was thinking. I also knew that planting bird seed was not going to result in birds. But I am Dad and she had me wrapped around her little finger. We bought the bird seed and a fun flowerpot. She immediately went to work and put dirt in the pot, and she carefully planted some seeds. After watering it, she stared at the pot for a very long time. I went about getting some other chores taken care of around the house. When I came back, she had dug up the seeds. “I wanted to see if they were growing yet.” “Honey, it takes time. You need to let it grow.” My wife and I had to tell her several times to let it be. After a while, she resigned herself to having to wait for her harvest of birds. She put the pot in the sun and watered it daily. Life went on.
One day, I noticed a little green shoot poking through the dirt. When my daughter woke up and saw that, saying that she was excited would be an understatement. I thought my wife had replaced the bird seed with something else, but she shrugged in the same confused manner I was doing. Now we were kind of excited and confused. A few days later, as the shoot became a full plant, we were able to identify a sunflower. The bird seed included sunflower seeds and that is what was blooming.
That single sunflower in the following years created seeds that we used for sunflower gardens for many years. But if my daughter had continued to dig up the seed, and not allow it to work through the process, it would never have been able to be all that it was created to be.
The same principle goes with helping those that are in poverty and homeless.
We must help them discover stability. While it is possible for plants to overcome the odds and grow in the midst of a blacktopped parking lot, it is unlikely. Those that are currently homeless need to learn the skills and develop a nurturing spirit so that they can fully flourish. There are many arguments about how to do that. But regardless, we must understand that helping them change their lives is a process.
While we typically function on chronological time, nurturing and caring for these men and women operate on agricultural time. We must tend to them and care for them for the long-term. It is easy to be impatient and, in a hurry, to see them do something with their lives. It is also tempting to try to shortcut the process and stick them in a home and call it good.
