A little over a week ago I sat in a room filled with high school students and a handful of adults after a week of serving those struggling with homelessness and food insecurity. As we gathered after our last day of work for our final reflection time the leader of the organization we were working with began to tell a story.

She told of a particularly cold day last winter – one that required her to wear two coats and two scarves just to stay warm. She told of bundling up to go to work that morning and repeating the process to venture out to find lunch. On her way to lunch she encountered a homeless woman in a wheelchair begging for change and shivering from the cold. As the leader talked about wanting to help this woman my mind raced ahead trying to determine the lesson to be gleaned from this story.

I don’t know what words were spoken next by the storyteller because my mind was screaming she has two coats. When I finally silenced the voice in my head confident that I knew where there story was headed I discovered that I was wrong.

I felt a twinge of disappointment as I listened to the story of how this woman did not give away a coat but instead wheeled the homeless lady into a restaurant and bought her lunch. After lunch the storyteller told of her encounter with a homeless man who was also hungry and cold. She gave him a few dollars and a cup of coffee and returned to work.

Once again the voice in my head began to scream, “BUT YOU HAD TWO COATS AND TWO SCARVES!!” As I listened to this lady explain how she returned to her office and began to cry, I thought the tears stemmed from her realizing, as she was removing her layers of warmth, that she had two scarves and two coats and didn’t give one to either of the homeless people that she encountered on her lunch break.

Once again I was wrong.

Her tears flowed from an overwhelming sense of helplessness. This woman felt like there was nothing she could do to help so many who struggle with homelessness and food insecurity in her city. There was some “lesson” about how we were helping with our week of service and ways we could continue to help. But, I was just disappointed in the story. Plus, I still hadn’t moved beyond the fact that this lady left with two coats and two scarves, encountered two homeless people, and returned with two coats and two scarves.

I’m pretty sure I missed the point of her story, but as I sit here over a week later I think the most important lesson I could have learned is still reverberating in my heart and head: You have two coats!