The Hitch Hiker
by Bill McDonald ©Copyright 1999
For several days, I had this feeling tugging at me, a feeling that there was someone special I was supposed to meet. I couldn't seem to shake the thought from my mind. As I drove toward the local bookstore one day, the old bible verse, Hebrews 13:2 just kept sliding through my head like it had been all week; a shadow spreading over my active thoughts... "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
As I entered the bookstore, my eyes were immediately drawn to Linda Goodman's "Star Signs". I picked up the book and opened it. Right there, leaping out at me from the first page, was the very same bible quote that had been running through my head all week! Again, that feeling of an "appointment" with someone washed over me. I knew then, that God was at work again so I trusted He would lead me to the right place at the right time. I took a in a deep breath, exhaled, and relaxed to let the thought go.
A few days later while at work, I had a feeling of urgency. I felt compelled to go home early. The feeling was too strong to ignore so I left work and headed south down Highway 99. As I drove, Hebrews 13:2 crept back over my mind. I knew something was about to happen. The further south I drove, the stronger the feeling became.
As I passed the South Sacramento Kaiser Hospital, about 5 miles from my home, I saw a hitch hiker huddled against the rain alongside the highway. It was obvious that this young man didn't know how to hitch hike; he was on a stretch of highway that was almost impossible for anyone to pull over to give him a ride. I suddenly knew that I had to pull over for him... it wasn't an optional feeling. I pulled as close to him as possible and he still had to run about 100 feet to catch up to me.
As he approached my window, I was shocked at his youth. He couldn't be much more than 20 years old (22 exactly, as I soon found out). When he looked in at me, his eyes held mine. A startled look passed between us. Breaking the moment, I asked where he was headed. He was trying to get to Texas to find his step-dad. I told him I would take him a short way and he gratefully hopped into my pickup.
With him came the smell of a person who has been living on the streets for weeks. His face had a beaten down look, weathered and sad. The cold rain ran down his dirt streaked face and dripped from the tip of his nose. The small amount of clothing he wore hung in heaviness against his lean body. He wore a short sleeved shirt and no jacket but had attempted to warm his bare arms with a pair of long socks, pulled up like gloves on his hands. He was soaked and cold, so cold he was shivering. My heart went out to him and as I came upon my exit, I asked if he would like to warm up and get something to eat before he continued his journey. He agreed so I continued on home.
As we walked through my front door, my daughter's eyes fell upon the muddy, stinky, tired young man. She just stood wondering what I was doing. I led the man past her into the bathroom and gave him some clean dry clothes to put on after he bathed. I took one look at his own rain drenched clothes that he handed to me and I put them in the garbage; they were beyond help. While he was changing, I thought that if this kid were to survive out there, he would need some equipment.
I led him to the garage where I pulled out my camping gear. I pulled out a back pack and began to fill it with camping stuff. Then we went back into the house where I added a wool blanket, underwear, tee shirts, socks, jeans, an Oakland Raiders cap and, most importantly, a jacket. We went back to the kitchen where I made him a lunch and something to drink. He accepted what I gave him with his head down but grateful and polite. Then I sat down at the table across from him. He looked up at me and, once again, his eyes burned into mine. Then, he began to speak.
He had been living with his grandmother up on the northern coast of California. She had passed away so so he had spent his time in foster homes. Now, he had grown too old for them. He was alone with no one to turn to and no place to really call home. He was now on his way to try to find his step-dad who lived somewhere in Texas to see if he might take him in; maybe help him get on his feet. Then, last night, he had gotten caught in the rainstorm. Everything he had owned had gotten soaked through and through. His sleeping bag had been ruined along with all of his spare clothes so he had thrown them away. He had felt, then, that the whole world was against him. He had nothing to live for, nobody who even cared about him, and now he had lost everything to the rain; it seemed that even the weather had something against him.
As he told me of his experience, I could see the desperation in his face, the despair in his voice. Realizing the depth of his depression, I knew that this young man sitting across from me had entertained serious thoughts of suicide.
Then he told me that at his very lowest that night, he had had a "real life like dream" while he was completely awake. He said he saw a man who looked just like me. Same clothing, same beard and hair, same eyes and the same voice. He believed that it was, in fact, me who had been in this dream. And in this dream, the man had come toward him with a smile on his face, reached something out to him and said something.
I stopped him, then. I stood up, opened a drawer and picked out a pack of sugarless chewing gum. When I turned toward him and he saw the gum in my hand, his eyes rounded and his jaw dropped. I, myself, was surprised. I had no idea what I was doing. And then I said... "some people have said that I have a special gift. But when I hand you this pack of gum, you will understand more fully, what happened to you last night". I reached out and placed the pack of gum in his hand and his eyes began to fill with unshed tears.
With trembling hands and widened eyes, he said that the man in his "dream" had done exactly what I had done but had gone on to say... Then, I held my hand up to him to stop his words. I fixed my eyes on his and said, "..and the man said: Everything will be alright. God loves you." The young man gasped. He said that those were the very words the man in the dream had said and that those were also the words that had given him the strength to continue his journey.
The kitchen grew quiet as we all looked at each other. My daughter was amazed as was I. We all knew that we had just borne witness to an astonishing miracle and not one of us could speak.
I drove the young man back to Highway 99, put a few dollars in his pocket and gave him a raincoat to ward off the weather. As I watched him walk away, he turned to look back once more. "Thank you" he said. "Thank God instead," I replied and he turned and walked down the entrance ramp. I turned my truck around and wiped the rain from my eyes, knowing inside that it was not the rain, but tears. God had given me a very special gift that day.
I have been sending prayers for this young man since 1990 even though I have never seen him again. I know that our paths have crossed in the strangest and most wonderful of ways. Our lives, forever changed through God's voice. And I wonder now, so many years later, how many more strangers are out there waiting. And how many of those are "angels unawares"?