Like a movie, here is a warning that the following information is presented by someone directly related to this issue.  This is not political.  It is following what would Jesus do.  It is a sign that we need to wake up our country to Jesus.  A revival is needed  

I was once told that being a “A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount up to and including their life.” In a biblical sense, it is best described in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

That is it – right there: Love. Even though we have the free will to follow our own will, Jesus made a point of defining certain ones of them for us. In Matthew 22:37-39, He said “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’”. Love is clear in the Scriptures. Jesus gave love priority over all other Christian virtues. Love for God and Love for your neighbors. Every interaction with our neighbors should be weighed against the weight of love. Love is important. Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another” (John 13:34).

The apostle Paul goes on to tell us in Romans 13:7-10 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. The next verses call us to understand that Love Fulfills the Law 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Why all the reciting about love? I would say that someone who is showing their love by laying down their life for us is truly worthy of our love. To me, these are our true heroes. Winston Churchill “said a nation that fails to honor its heroes, soon will have no heroes to honor”. That echoes what Abraham Lincoln said: A nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.

Mental Illness in the US is rampant and the care program for it is broken. Mental Illness and addition are the leading causes for homelessness. The end result is that about 23% of the homeless are veterans. A perfect count of the homeless is impossible due to the constantly changing nature of homeless populations. It is irrelevant that it is hard. The issues with homelessness need to be fixed. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night in the modern country of the United States of America. By taking 23 percent of the total range, that would indicate there are between 529,000 and 840,000 veterans who are homeless at some time during the year in a country with only about 330 million people.

All my medical friends tell me that to scientifically treat any illness, you need to treat the illness or what causes the illness – not the symptoms. Like too many things in the US, we are trying to treat the symptoms. The symptoms are addiction and homelessness. The cause is mental illness. It has become convenient to pretend to treat the homelessness instead of the more difficult causes.

I want to read a short excerpt from a storybook

“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh.

There was a pause.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.

“No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.

“What are you doing?” asked Pooh.

“Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.

“But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”

And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”

I love Winnie and Piglet, but it is a children’s story. That is the way that I think that everyone wants to treat this hard problem. It works in storybooks for simple problems. Drugs and mental illness are not simple problems. It is great to be there for someone because you love them, but there is also action required. The real action way is like Jesus said “’ Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another “’. If we truly love one another, we need treatments of the causes. We need to pray every day for our country and our leadership to wake up and strive to fix this problem in a scientific way.