At the Webber Street Centre in Waterloo, one of the privileges of my role is getting to know the men and women who come through our doors. People who often arrive guarded. Their stories shaped by years of being overlooked.
I am drawn to the slow work of building trust, of breaking through that outer hardness to glimpse the person beneath.
One man had long resisted connection and was known to staff as distant, yet over time and patience, a camaraderie grew between us. One day, in the middle of conversations about accommodation and our home countries, he handed me a small, folded page.
Torn from the back of a novel and worn thin from being carried around, it held a love poem written for a woman he had met at another homeless centre. Someone he had deeply fallen for.
In that moment, the man so often dismissed as cold revealed a tender interior. His guarded heart briefly laid bare in the careful lines of his poetry.
It might surprise us to hear that love, romance, and the desire for relationship are common points of conversation among our guests.
We may assume that someone experiencing homelessness has far more pressing concerns. That survival, housing, or access to services must take priority over thoughts of companionship. And yet, again and again, love finds its way into conversation at Webber Street. Of course, there are firm and healthy boundaries in our interactions, but this doesn’t mean we stop guests being open and honest.
Guests have approached staff asking for help to meet a girlfriend. Some have even brought a date along to our evening meals. These moments gently remind us that homelessness does not strip someone of their humanity, their hopes, or their capacity to love and be loved.
The desire for love is universal. No matter our circumstances, most of us carry a deep longing to be known, seen, and chosen by another.
In that sense, a single forty-something American woman working at a Christian homeless centre in Waterloo has more in common with a twenty-five-year-old man experiencing homelessness than one might assume. We are both moved by stories of love, especially when those stories come with good soundtracks.
I was recently speaking with a friend from church about my own singleness, and we talked honestly about the discomfort that can come with opening ourselves up to be loved.
Making ourselves vulnerable enough to be known can feel risky and exposing. That same hesitation is often mirrored in our guests, particularly when it comes to building connection within a church family.
Yet when we open ourselves to love, we also create space to see how God will meet us there. These moments become opportunities for growth, for deeper faith, and for new expressions of God’s grace to be revealed.
Scripture reminds us that we were created for relationship. From the very beginning, God tells us that it is not good for us to be alone (Genesis 2:18).
This longing for connection is not a weakness to be corrected, but a reflection of the relational nature of the God who made us. When that longing goes unmet, the pain of homelessness, addiction, and marginalisation can feel even heavier. Loneliness and rejection have a way of compounding existing wounds.
So, when guests open their hearts to us, sharing their favourite love songs or telling us about the great loves and losses of their lives, it feels like a profound privilege. These moments of vulnerability matter. They signal trust, and they remind us that God is already at work.
This is also an area where God can move powerfully. Conversations about love often become doorways into deeper conversations about the God who is love itself. Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and that “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
When we point people to Jesus, we point them to the one who sees us fully and loves us completely. Like Hagar, our guests can come to know the Lord as “the God who sees me” (Genesis 16), the God who notices, who names, who saves.
There is nothing more vulnerable than offering your heart, than daring to ask to be accepted as you are, especially after a lifetime of rejection. And yet our God does not love cautiously or sparingly. He lavishes His love upon us (1 John 3:1), and there is no greater joy than belonging to Him.
As churches, we are invited to reflect this love. We are called to welcome people experiencing homelessness at every stage of their journey, not as projects to be fixed, but as people to be loved.
The church should be a place where people are known and valued, where belonging is offered freely, and where healing can begin. At Webber Street, our team is available to help churches welcome and journey alongside those experiencing homelessness in safe and God-glorifying ways.
Encouraging our guests to feel deeply, to express their hearts, and to tell their stories is not a distraction from growth. It can be part of how God brings healing and understanding. While romantic love may or may not be part of someone’s future, the invitation to know the love of Christ and the fellowship of other believers is always open.
This Valentine’s Day, may we remember that love is not peripheral to the gospel. It sits at its very heart. By loving people well, by welcoming them into our church families, and by pointing them to Jesus, we participate in the kind of love that restores dignity, brings hope, and reminds every person that they are seen, known, and deeply wanted by God.
Is there anything more romantic than that?
LCM shares the gospel alongside the local church of London, equipping everyday Christians to lovingly bring a message of hope in Christ to those least likely to hear it.
Registered Charity No. 247186
