Homeless, Faithful, and Asking God - 'Why Them, Not Me?' On a Street of Mocking Ghouls, Gargoyle Grins & Skulls During Halloween 

The smoke hits me first. Real smoke, from a real fireplace, a scent of oak and comfort that I feel in the back of my throat. It’s a ghost of warmth, and I follow it like a stray. Then comes the plastic, the chemical tang of a new-in-the-box grim reaper, his scythe bent from the packaging.

The street is a gallery of grinning death. Skulls with hollow eyes stare out from porches I will never step on. Fake blood, garish and red, drips in artistic rivulets down windows that glow with the light of kitchens and living rooms. It’s all a game to them. A dance with the darkness for a few weeks before they pack it all away in climate-controlled attics.

My feet are cold. The cold isn't a concept here; it's a presence, a slow seep through the worn soles of my shoes, a dull ache that has taken up residence in my bones. The ground I’ll sleep on later, behind the library where the vents blow hot air, is harder than this pavement. This is just the walk to the hard part.

And then I see it. The house. It’s not the biggest, but it’s perfect. A soft, golden light spills from every window. A man and a woman are on the lawn, laughing, their breath puffing in little clouds. A little girl, maybe six, is directing them, her mittened hands pointing. They are hanging a gargoyle from the ancient oak in their front yard. Not a cute one. A truly demonic-looking thing, all snarling muzzle and bat-like wings, carved from some dark stone or clever resin. They are hoisting the adversary, the minion of the very evil my faith teaches me to resist, and they are doing it with joy. With the easy, unthinking joy of those who have never known a true, unending night.

The question doesn’t roar. It has no fire. It’s a cold stone that forms in my gut and rises, a smooth, heavy weight, until it lodges itself in my throat, choking off my air.

Why them? Why not me?

It is not envy. Envy is a hot, petty thing. This is a vast, cold confusion that threatens the foundations of everything I’ve clung to. I have prayed on my knees. I have read the Psalms until the words were worn smooth in my mind. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. I have believed in the God of Abraham, who provided a ram. Of Isaac, who received a well. Of Jacob, who wrestled and was blessed. I have tried, in my poverty, to live by love, to offer my last piece of bread, to bless those who look through me. I have held onto the light.

And for my devotion, I am given the frosted lawn of a stranger to sleep on. They, who openly celebrate the aesthetic of the fallen one, are given a roof, walls, a daughter with clean mittens.

Do you see this, Abba? The prayer is silent, a fracture in my soul. I am trying to understand the lesson. Is it patience? I am patient. Is it humility? I have none left. My faith feels like a rock in my hand, Father. Is it a stone to build a wall, or is it the very thing that is pulling me under the water?

A memory ambushes me, sharp and sweet as a shard of glass: the whistle of my kettle. My little apartment, the one with the leaking faucet. The simple, profound act of making a cup of tea. Holding the warm mug in both hands, watching the steam curl into the air. The sovereignty of it. The power to create a small pocket of warmth in a cold world. I miss that more than any feast. That tiny, mundane miracle of comfort.

The family goes inside, closing their thick, painted door against the chill. The gargoyle hangs, a dark sentinel over a kingdom of warmth. I look from its twisted face up to the sky, where a few hard, bright stars are showing.

The God of the Bible parts seas and rains bread from heaven. The God of my reality offers me a cold bench and the sight of a plastic coffin on a warm, green lawn. How do I reconcile it? I don’t. I can’t. The duality doesn’t resolve. It just… is.

The anger I expected doesn’t come. In its place is a sorrow so deep it feels like a new kind of silence. The prayer that finally forms is not one of demands or understanding. It is just a name, breathed out into the freezing air, a single syllable that hangs like a ghost.

Emmanuel.

God with us.

Is He? Is He here, in the cold that numbs my fingers? Is He there, in the house with the gargoyle? The evidence is a mess of contradictions, a divine irony too sharp to bear.

I turn from the warm house. My bench is waiting. The emotional residue left on my soul isn’t a hardened heart. It’s something more fragile, more terrifying. It’s a determination stripped of all feeling, a choice made in the total absence of proof. I will keep walking. I will keep whispering the name into the dark. Not because I am sure of an answer, but because the whisper itself is the last, sacred thing I own. The question is my testimony. The shivering is my prayer.