Intercede...or Intervene?

I thought I'd seen it all.

But last night, I was faced with a new dilemma.

And I have no idea what I'm going to do about it.

I intercede for people on the streets all day long. I lift them up in prayer, I speak blessings upon them.

I don't intervene.

If someone asks for help, for counseling or for rehab, I will step in. But I've never considered inserting myself without an invitation.

Until now.

Last night I got a call from Stan, a personable guy who is a caretaker for a woman he calls "Grandma." They aren't related, but she considers him family, having lost her own son years ago.

Stan wants help in finding a home for her.

He says she has become increasingly negative and hard to live with. He's had enough.

I've met "Grandma" a few times and while I know that her life has been tough, I also know that she is able to care for herself, preferring Stan's company to being alone but not needing it to survive.

Yet she signed Power of Attorney over to him.

Which gives him the right to have her put in a home against her will.

I have a pretty good idea of the whole picture.

Stan likes take homeless people in for a few days to help them. He calls us frequently to help, and I know he has a good heart. But he also spends his days out on the streets hanging (and drinking) with the homeless. He feels different because he has a place to lay his head at night yet in most ways, he's living the same life they are.

I know "Grandma" hates it. Stan sees friends; she sees bums.

I imagine her "negative attitude" is nothing more then her expressing her feelings about yet another homeless person camping on her couch. This time, it is a woman we'd just sent to rehab for a second time, who left and hitchhiked back only to find her drug-dealer boyfriend shacked up with another girl.

I'm supposed to go over there this afternoon to talk to her.

Stan wants me to convince her to go into a home so he can do whatever he wants with whomever he wants in her house.

I want to tell her to change her will, removing him as her POA.

I'll probably do neither, listening and encouraging them to work things out instead.

I will pray that the Lord precedes me, making my every step and word His.

Because on my own, I have no idea what to do.