When the Squeeze Comes

On Losing Grip, Finding What’s Left, and the Mess That Spills Out

Once, not so long ago, I was poor enough that homelessness felt like it was pacing my porch. Creditors pounded as if they owned the hinges. Payday loans—devil’s candy—offered a sugar rush and left my pockets hollow. I dodged the mailbox as if it were rigged with accusations. The phone became a grenade. Every ring reminded me of what I could not pay.

That low place smelled of damp earth and defeat. Not quite the pit, but close enough to see its edges.

And then—a friend. Quiet as dawn, steady as roots. He paid my rent, no speeches, no conditions. A decade later when I tried to repay him, he waved me off. “Give it to charity,” he said. Grace has a way of slipping in sideways, refusing repayment, and multiplying itself.

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The truth? I was never homeless. I never went without food. My unraveling was real but thin—first-world suffering, a bruise compared to the broken bones of others. Still, it pressed me. Still, it revealed what was inside.

So what would I do if I lost everything—chairs that carried my tired weight, shirts frayed at the collar, sketchbooks crowded with half-prayers, books soft-spined from rereading?

Panic, first.
Tears, next.
Prayer, ragged and unpolished.

And then I would seek. Help. People. Work. A way to prove I am still useful. From there, the Spirit’s domain—fog, shove, and unexpected provision.

Jesus knew this road: “Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” The apostles knew it too—shipwrecked, ragged, imprisoned—and still they sang. Paul, beaten and chained, prayed not for release but for clarity to preach. That undoes me every time.

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Loss presses us. That is its nature.
Squeeze an orange—you get orange juice.
Squeeze a Christian—you do not always get Christ. Sometimes fear. Sometimes bitterness. Sometimes the sharp tang of the old self.

Paul’s letters remind me: the squeeze is not the end. It is the test. And what spills out is what was truly inside all along.

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My hope—fragile as a strawberry stem—is that in the strip-down He remains.
That when the squeeze comes again, it will be Christ who spills out, not me clutching at control.

And maybe that is enough.

I know in my low place, bitterness nearly won. But grace leaked through the cracks.
Yours may be different. What pours from you when the press comes, and how has it surprised you?

Tags: loss, faith, poverty, grace, resilience, homelessness, hope, trust, provision, spiritual formation, surrender, discipleship, gospel, endurance, insideout, Forming20