There are cars whizzing by, in rhythm with the traffic light that's yards from my bedroom window. It never grows quiet, even at night. Across the street is the county hospital, so there is the arbitrary pulse of sirens and horns. This is the city I love, the urban blare and movement.

Yet the price has been more than I imagined. I've seen things that I daily pray will exit from my memory. My physical health has failed countless times. Even my mental health has plummeted twice, leaving me sore of heart and tired in mind. But each time I got better, slowly. I've been hit by a car during a gang fight. There's been a constant struggle with a disease that once left me barely able to walk. And pieces of my past that haunt me. Each of these memories are only reinforced and agitated by the suffering I see around me. Dangerous situations seem to tail me and only God knows how I've scraped out of most of them. If I would have known - if I could have seen the struggle on the horizon…would I have stepped out? Surely not. Hence why God must keep us in today. Only He can bear foreknowledge of the future.

But this isn't the end of the story. There is this crazy contradiction that enfolds my life. I've felt the very heartbeat of God. I've seen miracles. I've heard the voice and seen the signs. My legs walk again and I have a joy that invades my life leaving me speechless. There is a steadfast grace that has helped me begin to solve the mysteries that plague my mind and bring such anxiety. I have friendships that stun me to such a point of gratitude that I can do no more than constantly thank the goodness of God. I am not married and there are none of mine growing up in this world, but I do have some 300 children, (all gifts from God) some grown now.

This journey hasn't been easy, it's far from safe…but it has been good. Beyond measure. But still, sometimes I doubt. And it's sometimes this ill ease and fear that keeps me up at night...listening to the mechanical song of the city. Lying in the dark, I think of each child and wonder, plan. Trying to find new ways to reach them. It's 3:15 a.m. and I'm wide-eyed because I know Kathleen's heat got turned off. The clock clicks over to 4 and I'm reliving a conversation I had with Dante today. His father hit him in the face and Dante hasn't talked to him in months. 5:52 and my mind is thinking back half a day earlier as I watched Annette design her art project. Our lesson was "Be kind to each other." Annette's paper simply read, "Be stupid to each other."

How do I teach God's promises in a place like this? I've struggled enough to find the truth in my own life. How do I take a wordless hope and paste it on the hearts and hands of this community? How in the world can the gospel penetrate this ironclad shell that shackles urban dreams? Does "Jesus" come through here? Is it possible to read of God feeding His children with manna while all that's in your mom's fridge is a loaf of bread, a box of diet Pepsi and a six-pack of beer? And what's it to you if you hear the stories of a healing Jesus - lame men walking - when your dad died of AIDS six months ago?

It's so esoteric. Enigmatic. Have the promises of old become archaic? Is He relevant? And just on the verge of me throwing my hands up, giving up on the idea of redemption a little boy comes and whispers to me.

"A.B…A.B." he says softly in my ear, "I'm doing story problems at school."

I nodded my head. He had brought his homework earlier that week and I watched as he painstakingly worked through each one. Esteban struggles at school.

"And A.B., inside my head I hear God…helping me with story problems. That's how I do them."

Then I see it in his eyes, the faith that I fear might not be strong enough to survive the winters here. Esteban has what I often wonder exists.

"A.B…A.B…that's how I know God is real."

Here I am worrying about everything that surrounds the boy, all the ache around him. And I forgot the God that created him. Because just when I'm doubting hope and cosmic decency…God shines the spotlight on that "manna from the sky thing". It's been there all along. I've just been too busy looking for that supermarket white bread. And He gently reminds me that sometimes he takes a child's lunch and feeds a hungry crowd and other times he helps a near illiterate boy get through another mimeographed sheet of math problems. Both miracles. This is the Gospel. This is Jesus. This is why I don't need to worry.

I can guarantee you when Jesus is in the mix, the odds will always seem against Him. This is the way He plays the game. It's just the appetizer - the opening act - to His glory. In the end it leaves us no room to doubt His raw might.

Jesus saved me. I wasn't the last hopeless case on His list of things to do. When Jesus fed the masses it wasn't the final miracle to be checked off His "great moments" list. He was hardly finished. He is here. He is alive. And I'm glad that tomorrow when they hand out another worksheet at our local elementary Esteban will be okay. And for you and me, I'm confident that God will whisper the answers, give the strength, supply the courage and pour out His love on us…again and again. Until we find ourselves free of this human cage.

Hold it close to your heart that God is good. His mercy is infinite and His love - boundless. We have nothing to fear.