If you have never been to AGAPE, we are located within the inner city of Des Moines, Iowa surrounded by drug addiction, homelessness, crime, and poverty.

A few months ago, we updated our name and logo. With that update, we discarded our old signage. As we were throwing our old metal signs into the dumpster, a homeless woman came out of the woods. She was curious about what we were throwing away. We showed her and explained that it was our old signs. The signs read: Agape: A place to find help & hope, care & compassion.

“May I have them to make a shelter?” she said. It felt weird handing her our signs, but we could not refuse her.

That evening, storms were ravaging, and the rain was beating down. I laid awake in my bed thinking about this woman. I was imagining her huddled underneath the lean-to shelter of our signs, shaking, cold and trembling. The words reflecting on the sheet metal as the lighting lit up the sky: Agape: A place to find help & hope, care & compassion. AGAPE means God’s perfect, unfailing and unending love. Under this physical shelter, she was being covered.

My friends, if this is not a picture of what God does in our lives, I don’t know what is. 

Weeks went by, and we had not seen the woman again. One evening, as we were getting ready to lock our doors, she ran into our waiting room. Physically dirty and shaking from the drugs she had just taken; we recognized her face. It was the woman who had made a shelter of our signs. Shaking from head to toe, she said: “I think I might be pregnant… can you help me?”

She knew where to run. She knew where to find help & hope, care & compassion. She ran to AGAPE.

Today, if life feels like a storm is raging around you, run to the One who can shelter you from the storm. He is waiting. Run to Him.

Additional Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21

Worship Song: Heart of God by Zach Williams