Don't pick up strangers!!!

It is the traditional advice which has been past down from parents to children since cars were invented. It is good advice.  The world can be a scary and dangerous place.

I guess there are some notable exceptions.  One time when I was about 6, we were driving in the winter to Portland Oregon during a winter storm (last time we made the trip to Portland at Thanksgiving.).  We were sleeping in the back of the station wagon (before seat belts) when our car slid into the rocks along the freeway.  I can remember the kind man who stopped and loaded us into his car and took us to a nearby diner where we waited for our uncle to come and pick us up.  We were strangers but he didn't hesitate to render aid to us.

On the way to get married in Provo, again in a winter blizzard, the car I was driving slipped off the road into the ditch.  We were traveling in separate cars so my parents didn't know (no cell phones back then) until they got to Evanton and we weren't there.  A man in a big truck and a cb radio stopped and pulled us out and reported we were safe.  Another stranger who helped.

And I actually knew someone who picked up a hitchhiker along the side of a freeway in Kansas City. He said that his car had broken down and he was walking for help.  Long story short---her family ended up helping him fix his car, they taught him the gospel, he served a mission and they got married in the temple--all because she felt at 17 years old that she should pick this guy up and help him.  She was a friend at BYU and she said they were already worrying about what to tell their future children about how they met because of course, they didn't want THEM picking up strangers.

This is a long introduction to say, I pick up a stranger yesterday and gave her a ride.  Perhaps I have done this before with Gary but I don't remember it and for some reason this experience was very powerful to me.  The story goes like this:

I pulled out of the parking lot last night after the conference with my car piled with stuff.  I had taken an extra boxed lunch and was unwrapping the sandwich.  I hadn't eaten much lunch earlier so I was hungry.  When I stopped at the light at the corner, a woman approached the car.  I thought she was asking for money which I never have so I waved her off (that alone is a bit of a problem for me.  I feel conflicted about homeless people and what I should or should not do. However I rarely carry money so that part is standard for me. I have no money.).  Then I rolled down the window and offered the rest of my box lunch, I have never done that.  When she saw me roll down the window she came back and said no, she didn't need food, she needed a ride to the hospital.  Without thinking I said get in.  I was headed to meet Jena to usher at Centerpoint but I told her to get in.  I was surprised myself.  She said she needed to get to St. Marks because she felt like she was going to hurt herself.  Then I understood and nothing else matter over getting her to St. Marks.  During our conversation, I found out that she had been adopted as an infant by a "white, LDS" family in Utah.  She has struggled with mental illness for many years which has made connections with her family hard.  She has lost two children due to her mental illness and have been adopted by another family.  She was fearful that she would hurt herself if she was alone again that night.  She told me that she had been diagnosed with bipolar as a teen but recently she had been told she had schizophrenia.  I shared that Ben had schizophrenia.  She asked me if I knew the difference and could explain them to her.  So I tried. Again the sense of being the person to be with her for a few moments filled me.

At one point she asked what I had been doing there and I talked about the conference.  Then she asked if that was my job and when I said no, she asked me what I did.  When I said that I was a social worker, she seemed to feel what I was feeling.  It wasn't an accident that I was at that corner at that moment in her life. She commented that people often wouldn't help her because of how she looked--dirty clothes, distractible affect and maybe she smelled from lack of bathing (but I don't have that sense so no problem for me). I felt that she felt that this moment was right and maybe she wasn't all alone in a larger sense.

I talked about the emergency room and what she needed to do and then I dropped her off, watched her walk in and then headed on my way.  I never even asked her name or gave her mine.  I wished that I could have gone in with her but knowing that I had no right or information which would have helped her.  I will never know what happened to her, but she will often be in my prayers--the stranger I picked up on the street.

Yes, my friends, there is a loving Father in Heaven, and while life happens around us and there are bad things everyday, He can reach out and help you standing on a street corner...and sometimes when you are really lucky, you get to be the person in the middle.

But please, don't pick up strangers when you are alone in the car!!!  Unless the moment is so compelling and you re the person in the middle.