Beating the Odds

After considering the costs of military school (not kidding) and a new vehicle, we made sure we bought our Powerball tickets for tonight. The jackpot is estimated at $75 million. But we buy our tickets even when it's a lowly $5 million. That's just our routine.

My sister Rayna, deep in her heart, believes someday she is going to win the Powerball. The odds will be in her favor. She just doesn't know when. I, on the other hand, know it is quite unlikely I will win the big jackpot. I still buy the tickets each week, just in case, but deep in my heart, I know God won't let me win. He knows I couldn't handle it. He knows I'd fall to temptation.

He's probably right.

So I expect we'll go about life like most folks do, working for a living, paying our bills, putting food on the table and enjoying a luxury now and then. It doesn't sound like much, but it is. More than we often realize.

I want to tell you a little bit about the non-glamorous side of San Diego (actually insert just about any city name here ... maybe even your own town). Here we have this tourist destination with its beautiful harbor filled with expensive sailboats and yachts. Its trendy downtown shops where tourists pay a hundred bucks for a "San Diego" sweatshirt. Its celebrity-owned restaurants where patrons drop 50 dollars a plate.

Then, when the sun goes down, we have the woman on the street corner, holding a plastic bag with her clothes, asking for 50 cents. There is the man in the wheelchair, holding a sign that says, "I bet you $1.00 you can read this," then demanding you pay him when he realizes you get the joke...

When we're on the road for business, we often eat in nice restaurants to entertain clients or treat ourselves to a decent meal after a hard day's work at the show. The first two nights of my recent trip, a Friday and Saturday, there were so many people walking about, I did not see the scene described above -- just one woman leaning up against a building with her backpack and a sign the said: "Stranded. Help in any way you can."

I remembered her, though. On the last night there, a Sunday, two of us grabbed some pizza in that same busy downtown area. I asked to have the leftover pizza boxed up and told my dinner companion, "in case we see any more homeless on the way back to the hotel."

We had only gone a few blocks when I saw that same woman, sitting by the building, with a baseball cap on to shield her face. I bent down and said, "Do you want something to eat?" She said, "Sure!" When she looked up, I was staring into the eyes of a beautiful young woman, maybe college age. This is the face of homelessness? I was so surprised that I just mumbled, "Here. It's just leftover pizza," and walked away. What I meant to say was "How did you end up here, on the streets, stranded?" and "How else can I help you?" But I didn't say those things.

But I didn't forget them, or her, either. I was so haunted by that pretty face that I spent many hours that night praying for her and, intermittently, thanking God for my many, many blessings. Knowing that God, in his own way, has put the odds in my favor after all.