The other night as I was driving out of Baltimore, I passed a young man who appeared to be in his early twenties. He was missing one leg. He hobbled from car to car at a stop light looking for money. It’s impossible at this point to know what his story is. But it’s unlikely that he was a hustler of some kind. It was nearly 11pm on a Sunday night and it was cold.

Between the temperature and lack of heavy traffic, I think it’s pretty safe to bet that if he had a place to go, he’d be there.

There’s something deeply unsettling about seeing someone (in many ways) very much like yourself subject to an entirely different set of life situations. No one chooses the life and family they’re born into. The life I was born into has been ripe with opportunities and relative safety and security. The young beggar in Baltimore was born into a life that, in one way or another, has left him without all of his appendages and without a warm, safe place to stay.

It leaves me grateful for what I have received, but also a bit perplexed—even a bit guilty. I’ve been toying with returning to the location in hopes of finding the young man and talking to him. But either way, I must believe that the young man has been afflicted to a noble end. Perhaps not his own, but one appointed in God’s wisdom—which is not always ours to understand.