Every day, when I go to work, that’s only part of my day. God has this amazing way of setting up encounters from the car into work, during my lunch, and from work to the car, and one of these encounters involved meeting a homeless man named Cedric.

The first time I met him, he appeared to be grumpy and didn’t want prayer. When I meet people like that, I continue to build a relationship with them, I just won’t offer prayer…won’t even talk about God, and then one day, all of that changed. 

It was the day I was walking towards work, and I could tell he was pushing his shopping cart at a faster speed to catch up with me, so I slowed down. We chatted for at least ten minutes, and during that time, he received prayer: very casual, eyes open, like a conversational prayer. He commented that he liked my attitude. We hugged and went on our way.

Now when he sees me, he tries to linger…make the conversation last…until I pray. I pray for him every time. About a week ago, I asked him if he wanted a bible or if he was cool. He said, “Yeah, I’d like that. I’d take it,” so I planned on picking one up for him but kept forgetting.

On Wednesday, as I was returning from the park at lunch, we saw each other, and he glanced at the bible in my hand and got all excited. He said, “Is that my bible?!” I had completely forgotten…again. I showed him that it was mine with my name engraved on it. He said, “That’s cool. Don’t stress. That’s cool.” I felt bad, hugged him, and went back to work.

That night, I stopped at a Target to pick up a bible, but guess what? Target doesn’t sell bibles, so it was going to be another no-bible-day on Thursday (yesterday). I knew I’d find him one some day, I just really wanted Wednesday to be THAT day. Well, it turned out that I didn’t need to “buy” him one at all.

Yesterday morning, as I was sewing flags, I thought, “Do I have a bible on my shelf that I am willing to give up?” I walked over to the book shelf and stared. I went over each one, at least twice, to see if any one of them was the “one” that would impact Cedric’s life, and there was a healing bible that I had never opened. It even had a box to help protect it on the streets. I took it with me.

Well, sometimes, the weeks before the porn convention may seem pretty busy, and yesterday was one of those days where I needed to run to Lemon Grove on my lunch, and as I was returning, I saw Cedric pushing his cart right by my work. I’m telling you: he goes by there a lot now. He likes prayer. I hollered out the window, “Hi, Cedric! I have your bible in my office! I’ll park and run up to get it.” He said, “Okay. I’ll stick around.” I had a feeling he would.

As I came outside with the bible in my hand, he loved it. He loved the box. He loved the bible. He even smiled. I even remembered to grab my phone, so I would be able to capture the moment. He really appreciated it. I’m so excited to hear what God does with him. He’s forty-two years old…so much life ahead of him. I pray he chooses to live that life through God’s heart.