Jack Rusten ’26 and I are riding down the road, dying with laughter listening to our friend Wes talk about his “secret football club in Dublin” in a fake Irish accent so thick I wouldn’t be surprised if he used to be a theater kid. We pull into the parking lot, Wes still waxing poetically, me still cracking up, and hop out of the car into the blazing Tulsa sun.
Exhausted, sunburnt and weary of the world, some of our unhoused neighbors sit beneath a bus stop along Admiral Street, catching what bit of shade they can. As we approach them we give a friendly hello; and once we’ve handed out water to whoever wants it, I strike up a conversation with a man named Justin.
He starts telling me about his life and how he was abused as a child. Today he struggles with suicidal thoughts. “I often pray that God will kill me,” he said, near the start of our conversation. But God has kept him alive, and his faith is palpable. Justin told me of the staggering work of the Lord in his life, like bright rays of sun slicing through endless nights.
He could not stop praising the Lord, and the many prayers I shared with him that afternoon left me dumbfounded. The joy of the Lord is truly Justin’s strength, and I stand in awe of the richness of his faith.
I pray that each and every single one of you gets to grow as deeply in the Lord as Justin has. Your world at Covenant can feel so small, and indeed it is. You don’t have the privilege of encountering much diversity, much less our unhoused neighbors down in Chattanooga every day.
But the same God who brings about his kingdom on the streets lives in the hearts of you and me. The same faith that keeps Justin alive sustains you right now, in your struggle to keep breathing under the weight of academic stress. Stop standing, fall and realize that you are held.