{"id":42691,"date":"2016-07-26T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=42691"},"modified":"2017-10-22T13:09:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T20:09:33","slug":"hell-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/hell-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Hell on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Riviera is a frequent and popular contributor to this blog. Many of his posts on loving your neighbors<\/a> and ministering to the homeless<\/a> are consistently among the most popular articles on this blog.<\/p>\n

Based on his many years of friendship with lots of homeless people in San Diego, Sam Riviera has learned the stories of several of them, and, with their permission, is writing their stories in the form of letters to their dads. These are the letters that they might have written to their dads. Since it has been a while since Sam wrote one of these letters, you will want to go read the explanation about these letters here<\/a>, and especially read the First Letter to Dad: Killing Me Softely<\/a>, as the letter below follows on the events from that previous letter.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"homeless<\/p>\n

Dad,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been over a year now. I\u2019m still alive. Sort of.<\/p>\n

You have no idea what it\u2019s been like for me the past year. You can\u2019t even imagine it. This isn\u2019t rural Georgia, the town where you and I were born. This is the United States of America, land of the sick and twisted. I know \u2018em. You\u2019ve never made their acquaintance. Pray you never do.<\/p>\n

Hell. They talked about it in church. Where I am isn\u2019t a lake of fire, but it might as well be. Hell can\u2019t be much worse than this. Maybe this is really hell and the lake of fire thing with devils and pitchforks was invented by Dante and Hollywood.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why I\u2019m writing you. I guess I want mom to know I\u2019m alive, but will you tell her? I\u2019d tell her myself after you\u2019re dead and buried, but I doubt I\u2019ll be alive by then. Get on your computer and look up the average life expectancy for a homeless teenager who is a drug addict who is regularly raped by dirty old men.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got a death sentence. You were the judge that handed it down. You convicted me without a trial, with no evidence. Even if what you were told was true, so what? I\u2019m your son. I know you\u2019re more concerned about what people think than you are about your own flesh and blood. I might as well have terminal cancer. At least then I might be able to get treatment. As it is, I have no hope.<\/p>\n

Hard to imagine, but Jesus is here with me right in the middle of all this crap. I was hoping he\u2019d rescue me somehow, but it\u2019s not happened. Maybe it\u2019s drug-induced hallucinations, but I don\u2019t hallucinate about anything else. I see him walking the streets, and he sits and talks with me. The other guys say it\u2019s just some guy, but I see something different. I know what I\u2019m seeing. He told me only small children and a few older people see him for who he really is, and most people don\u2019t notice him at all.<\/p>\n

I asked him if he hangs out in churches. He laughed. He said he does, but not many notice or recognize him. He said he spends most of his time where he\u2019s wanted and needed. Not like me. I\u2019m not wanted, needed, or loved anywhere. I\u2019m just a user and mostly just used.<\/p>\n

Remember those baby birds in the nest by our front door when I was little? We watched the mother bird build the nest, then looked in after she laid the eggs. The babies were about a week old. One day the mother bird disappeared and never came back. The babies were dead by the next morning. Abandoned and soon dead. That\u2019s going to be me. Except I\u2019m more like the baby the mom kicked out of the nest. Something must have been wrong with it. That\u2019s what you thought about me. But nothing was wrong with me. You were wrong. But you still kicked me out and it\u2019s too late for me to survive. I\u2019m cold and sick, starving and afraid, and so lonely lying here in the filth waiting to die.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still a teenager. I didn\u2019t miss my childhood, but I will miss being an adult, all because of you. Can you live with that?<\/p>\n

Jason<\/p>\n

\"letter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Riviera is a frequent and popular contributor to this blog. 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