Thomas: A Miracle in the Making

Thomas is a man of about 40 years, very thin with faltering steps and a very sad countenance. Was standing in front of a store window on Chapel Hill street at Five-Points just across from where my friend, Milton, and I were witnessing to a couple of men in the park. He kept looking at us, almost as though he might be waiting for us to come to him. I said, “Milton, there’s a man God wants us to minister to.” and we crossed to street to where he was. He almost seemed on the verge of tears as we approached him.

“How are you doing?” I asked. And he immediately said, “Not too good.” His hand was bandaged from a fall he had taken a few weeks ago when he had some sort of seizure. His face was also bruised from the fall and his overall appearance was one of a wounded, defeated man. “How can we be a blessing to you today?” I asked Thomas, and he told us he hadn’t eaten anything for a few days and if he could get a couple dollars, he would go and find something to eat. Milton and I told him we would do better than that; we would take him to dinner and get anything he would like to eat. He immediately accepted our invitation and we went to Blue Coffee, a restaurant in the central square.

As Thomas ate his meal, he freely told us his story. He came to Durham to be near his grandfather after his parents died. He dabbled in drugs and alcohol as a teenager and by the time his grandfather died when Thomas was in his early twenties, he was a full-blown alcoholic. He has been on the streets since that time and is now living in an abandoned van a couple of miles from downtown Durham.

Thomas has had a hunger for God since he was a child, but has always felt helpless to “fight off the demons” as he puts it, and live the live he knows God wants him to live. “I know this is not what God intended for me,” Thomas said, “this ain’t living. I get a little money and need to get some food in my body, but instead I go and buy alcohol. I know I’m destroying myself and I want to stop, but everything I try to change the way I’m living, the demons in me seem to overpower me and I don’t have any help overcoming them.”

We assured Thomas that there was one who could and would help him–that is the one who has already defeated Satan on his behalf and would be delighted to give him the power to defeat his demons and live a powerful overcoming life. Thomas clung on every word. This is obviously what he had been longing for all his life. He said to us, “If God would do that for me–if he would heal me and set me free–I would live for him and try to do his will.” As we continued to encourage Thomas and assure him that Jesus would be his savior and deliverer and that we would be his friends, he reached out his hands to us and said, “Will you please pray for me?” We were going to get to that, but Thomas was ready now! We prayed with Thomas and he cried out to the Lord for forgiveness and deliverance.

I don’t know that I have ever seem a more dramatic change in a man’s countenance than I saw in Thomas’s. He was powerfully touched by the hand of God. I felt strongly led to suggest a Christian recovery ministry called “Bethel Colony of Mercy” in Lenoir, NC. Thomas said he would love to go to a place like that and learn how to grow in his faith. I made the call and we have started the process to get Thomas into the program. Pray for Thomas and pray that God will provide the funds to get into Bethel. I believe Thomas is a miracle in the making. You haven’t heard the last of Thomas!