As shared on Ann Carrozza’s Instagram account where she posted a request for stories from people who could share where generosity provided some unexpected payback.
“Here’s one of a few I could share, it’s the story of me and Janet, a very sweet little homeless woman that I’ve been helping out and watching over and sharing my time with over a few years now.
Helping her deal with a horrendous, if not broken social services system, helping her get a residence at a safe house she can go to, helping her get financial aid and identification,attaching a Gizmo Phone on my account for her that’s become a lifeline to her and also tells you where she is if she was ever in trouble, fostering her cat that isn’t allowed at the shelter, giving her a place in my home to come and stay when the transient world out there on the streets and in the world of our silent neighbors gets too frazzled, unsettling and insecure and threatens her mental stability.
Creating a little business for her called “Janet’s Thrift Shop” that I promote over my social media network that people donate clothes and electronics and housewares to that Janet organizes and sells, and being a consistent friend for her to call and count on in a life she often describes as
“being adrift on a rocky sea in the middle of a whirlwind” .
Though others thank me for what they see I do for Janet,
I never really think about what I am doing or giving with regards to her, I just do it and am there for her.
Very unanticipated blessing I have come to receive from this, is a profound intimacy and connection with God
that I never knew we could have.
In taking Janets phone calls at all kinds of crazy hours, since, like most homeless, she’s nocturnal,
and having long conversations with her over the phone
or at my house when she comes over to stay,
I have found myself trying to give her good advice and direction, and attempting to help her focus and direct her own tempest tossed thoughts and actions in ways that will be more productive and give her better chances for a happier present and future,
I have recognized the advice coming from me to her,
as being unnervingly poignant and eerily relevant to my own life, and the very advice I would be well served by heeding myself,
and now totally hear God, and the voice of my own father who’s been gone for years now, talking directly to me, through the words I share with Janet.
My life has become so enriched and I feel so blessed by God bringing this little homeless woman into my life,
to act as a medium for him to bring his words, his voice,
his wisdoms to me, as I speak them to her.
Through my friendship and caring for Janet,
I have come to feel the love of God
And have an internal conversation I never knew before.
