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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Desperate and Homeless Woman Considered Taking Her Life
Then She Found Joy Junction

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (ANS) -- It was about 9 p.m. on a January night five years ago when the reality of her situation hit Sabrina. She had nowhere to sleep that night.

Worn and desperate from the circumstances that had led to her homelessness that night, Sabrina said she knew she had to rest.

Sabrina said, “No streetwise pro, but a naïve and formerly sheltered woman both literally and figuratively, I had no one to ask and no options left.”

Sabrina thought about what to do next. She said, “Sitting in my ailing car, I cradled the pills that could dull some of the feelings but none of the reality. A normal person would take none or one. The addict in me would take 25 or 30. But the 100 in the bottle would solve it all. No cold uncomfortable nights in the car, at least none I'd remember. No regrets, awkward confessions or conversations.”

Sabrina turned on her radio, scanning the stations for some comfort that might help her delay doing what was on her mind.

She said, “I stopped on that contemporary Christian station I used to listen to back when I was a good girl. In between their three-minute musical attempts to save my soul, their DJ voiced a pitch for listeners to make donations to ... Joy Junction. I turned the ignition on my car and (drove) down the road to that place I'd once visited on a volunteering trip, and now headed for help.”

Sabrina said she would like to say that her arrival at Joy Junction was a wonderful experience, but it wasn’t, although not, she hastened to add, due to a lack of effort by shelter staff.

She continued, “Most residents had already gone to sleep for the night, so we couldn't say much. To me it didn't matter how friendly anyone was anyway; I felt like I was checking in to nothingness, being handed my pillow and blanket like a prisoner is handed his issue garb. This is where my life story ends, I thought, as I was led down the aisles amid the cuddled families.”

Neither, Sabrina said, was there a “miraculous prayer, a midnight confession or a dramatic conversation or conversion.”

However, Sabrina said, something important happened. She was made comfortable enough so that instead of taking her life as she had planned earlier that evening, she went to sleep. Waking up the next morning, Sabrina got in line for breakfast and made a life-changing decision. She would go to detox.

Sabrina said, “By no means is my recovery complete, but I am now working full-time in a professional position. I am (housed in a stable situation) surrounded by friends and family, connected with God, and hopeful for my future. Had I not had a place to go that January night five years ago, I would have ended my life sitting in my car with a bottle of water and a hundred painkillers.”

I received Sabrina’s story in an unusual manner; unsolicited through the mail. Along with her poignant tale (which she gave me permission to retell), Sabrina sent a generous offering to Joy Junction.

She said, “This donation is but a tiny fraction of what I owe to you, not for one night's lodging, but for a light in the night sky; for a door that did not slam in my face when I knocked upon it, for a place to rest and make a better, calmer decision.”

My Take

Perhaps you’ve seen the homeless in Albuquerque (or your city), and been moved with compassion for their plight.

Maybe you’ve prayed for that homeless man you see on the highway off ramp every day on your way to work, or perhaps even bought him a meal.

Or do you sputter indignantly as you drive past members of Albuquerque’s burgeoning homeless population, “They should just go get themselves a job - -I don’t know what our country’s coming to!”

We’ve found that many of our guests at Joy Junction Homeless Shelter are initially unable to hold jobs. It’s not that they don’t want to. They just can’t - - due to the often terrible physical abuse, and devastating mental and emotional trauma they have suffered. Having no one with whom they can share these wounds, they use alcohol or illegal drugs for comfort. Of course, rather than help, these substances just compound an already desperate situation and serve to further alienate sufferers from a many times already suspicious community.

So what is the answer? Ultimately it is only Jesus Christ Who can heal all those hurts and give meaning and purpose to life. But for many people, like Sabrina, the long road to recovery starts with a place to stay and a hot meal. In Sabrina’s case that place to rest, quite literally, saved her life.
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