Robert is an overcomer. Virtually seconds after meeting him, he told me that the number one thing that he wants to communicate to the world is the horror of drug addiction. He didn’t want others to live the way he did. He lifted up his shirt to reveal scores of large, swollen, red lesions on his torso, which he wanted to have depicted in his portrait. I looked down at the paper I had with pre-punctured holes. I showed Robert how I could compose the drawing so the holes in the paper represent his scars, but in a new way. I reminded him that his body, scars and all, can represent a powerful story of redemption. He fixed his gaze at me from under his weathered brow and his distinctive headphones. Using a bucket as his chair, I looked up at him from the pavement, carefully recording the details I saw. Robert’s posture straightened, and his smile grew. We invited the Holy Spirit to rest on him once again that he may turn his story in a new direction. A week later, Robert called me from a rehab center, and told me that because of his portrait, he had checked himself in and had been clean for 48 hours, for the first time in decades. He said, “I truly saw myself for the first time.”