Her name is Priscilla, and almost everyone in our community knows her. If you drive past the old bridge, you’ll see her there most days, sitting in a broken, rotting chair that looks as tired as she does. Her legs are swollen to nearly three times their normal size. Her mind carries battles she’s been fighting for years, and her words can come sharp and fiery. She’ll curse at you if you catch her on the wrong day. But if you stick around long enough, if you approach her with patience, you’ll discover something else: Priscilla has one of the sweetest souls you’ll ever meet.

I’ve had plenty of rough introductions with her myself—many of them ending with her shouting at me, calling me names I’d rather not repeat. But over time, something shifted. With consistency, trust grew. And today, I can honestly say I absolutely adore this woman. She’s complicated, stubborn, and unpredictable, but she’s also one of the most amazing souls I’ve ever known.

Priscilla is sick. Her foot is badly infected—the flesh literally rotting away. The wound seeps, and insects find their way inside of it. It’s something that makes my heart ache every time I see it. I’ve called ambulances for her more than once, begged her to let me take her to the hospital. Every time, she refuses. She doesn’t trust the system. She doesn’t want to go. And no matter how much I plead, I can’t force her.

So I do what I can.

The other day, I brought her Bactine spray, hoping it might help keep the wound clean, keep the bugs away. She was scared—terrified, really. She almost cried, convinced it would sting. So I knelt down in the dirt beside her chair and sprayed it for her. I did it gently, talking her through it, reassuring her. When it was done, I handed her a bag of Hot Cheetos and beef sticks. She looked at me, unimpressed, and told me off for not bringing pizza instead. That’s Priscilla. Honest to a fault, sometimes demanding, but always real.

And as I knelt there cleaning her foot, something washed over me. A memory of an old song: “Who will be Jesus to her?”

Because this is what it feels like. In moments like these, I realize the heart of my calling. The world sees the badge on my chest and often responds with hate. We are called names. We are painted as villains. People wish us gone, wish us dead. To many, we are not human—we are caricatures of everything wrong in society.

But away from the headlines, away from the cameras, this is what the job often looks like. It’s kneeling in the dirt to wash the feet of someone the world has forgotten. It’s listening to the curses of someone who is hurting and loving them anyway. It’s showing up again and again for someone who has nothing to give you in return—except trust.

In that moment under the bridge, with Priscilla’s frail foot in my hands, I felt closer to Jesus than I have in a long time. Not because I’m perfect, not because I always get it right—but because I believe He placed me here, in this uniform, to serve. To love. To show kindness where others might turn away.

Priscilla doesn’t see me as a cop. She sees me as the person who shows up. And that, I think, is what God asks of me.

So yes, we wear the badge. Yes, we protect. But we also serve. And sometimes, that service has nothing to do with arrests, or tickets, or patrol cars. Sometimes it looks like Cheetos, a can of spray, and a stubborn woman in an old chair under a bridge who just needs to know she’s not forgotten.

That’s the side of this job most people will never see. But it’s the side that matters the most.