A few years ago, I attended a conference service in California. Sitting in front of me was a woman who caught my attention—not because she appeared to be in crisis, but because of the way she worshipped.
She was well groomed and beautifully kept. There was nothing about her appearance that announced her circumstances.
What I saw was a woman worshipping the Lord with her whole heart.
Her name was Hattie.
When I first approached her, Hattie made something very clear:
“I am here only to worship my Father.”
She had not come asking to be noticed. She wasn’t presenting a list of needs. She had come to worship.
Later, Hattie allowed me to pray with her, and we sat together. As we spent time with one another, I began to see more of the woman behind that moment.
Hattie carried a clear bag containing only a few personal belongings and her Bible. She had left her glasses. Slowly, I began to understand that the woman I had first seen worshipping so freely was carrying a story I could never have known simply by looking at her.
Hattie had known family, provision, relationship, and home. Her life had also known abuse, fear, tremendous loss, mental-health struggles, and circumstances that eventually left her without stable housing.
But that isn’t what I saw first.
I didn’t meet “a homeless woman.”
I met Hattie.
That distinction has stayed with me.
Behind every circumstance is a person with a name, a history, relationships, gifts, losses, hopes, and a story we may know nothing about.
Not everyone who is vulnerable looks vulnerable. And sometimes the distance between stability and crisis is much smaller than we realize.
A family can be managing until one unexpected expense changes everything. A senior can be safely housed while increasing everyday costs quietly consume the small margin that once made life manageable. Someone can be carrying tremendous loss while still showing up, worshipping, loving, giving, and holding onto hope.
Years later, I still see Hattie’s face.
And her story helped give greater definition to something already in the heart of Rendered Powerful:
We don’t want to wait until someone’s crisis becomes their identity before we see them.
THE FACE BEHIND THE NAME
Faces of Hattie is not about creating another label for people who are struggling.
It is about seeing the person before we see the problem.
It is about noticing people sooner—recognizing vulnerability before crisis has the opportunity to define someone’s story—and responding with practical compassion, meaningful relationship, wise connection, generosity, service, and prayer.
And it is about remembering something else Hattie taught me:
The person receiving also has something to give.
Hattie had something to give me.
She gave us a story.
She changed the way we see.
Sometimes the person we thought we came to serve becomes the person through whom God changes us.
And that is why her name remains at the heart of this ministry.
