The Depths

Last night we had a service for our youth that was a "Peace and Healing" service. We have been talking about attitude and how the way you react to situations is truly your choice. You may have been dealt the worst cards in the stack and your circumstances and the things that happen to you on a daily basis may not be good at all. But it doesn't mean that you have to be rude and angry towards everyone else and it doesn't mean that you have to be unhappy all the time. Our youth have broken lives. It's a daily reoccurring theme down here that I find out something else about one of our youth's lives that is appalling. But, the staff realized, that if our youth were ever going to be ok with their lives and therefore change their attitudes, that we needed to let them know how to heal and more importantly, we needed to show them how to ask God to come into their lives to help them heal.

As one might imagine, last night was one of the most emotionally draining nights of Branches history. I also think it was a very important night for a lot of our youth.

Tony asked me yesterday afternoon if I would be willing to lead a prayer station. Since I am not comfortable praying in front of people I obviously shouted "NO!" in my head. And then I told him I would do it. Before I was even able to take my spot at a prayer station (where our kids would come up and together you would ask God to enter their lives and help them heal) one of my youth came up to me and said, "I need to talk to you outside."

This youth happened to be one of my high school girls. Her story is an interesting one, and one that will probably never be fully told because I'm not sure anyone could fully understand her pain. She is approximately 6'2" and solid. Our girls at Branches would call her "thick" because that's their word for everyone who isn't stick skinny like them. (Yes, I am daily called "thick.") But by solid I mean she can take any of our boys at basketball and she could probably bench press most of them as well. To say the least, this girl used to scare me. She's a tough girl. And she has the front of a tough girl. I have never seen her be emotional once in the months that I have worked here. But, as she got nick named at Oasis as 'The Gentle Giant,' she is always smiling and laughing when she comes to Branches and she truly loves Branches and the people here. I think that has to do with the fact that Branches is the complete opposite of her home life. Her mother had her when she was about 13 years old. Her grandmother had to step in and help raise her and her siblings. As one can imagine in this situation, she's had a hard life.

Last night when she asked me to step outside I wasn't sure what she was going to say to me. She started off by saying she's never really opened up to people about this, but she's feeling a pull to do so now. Then she just burst into tears and said, "My mom tells me everyday that she doesn't want me. I don't know why, but she doesn't want me. My grandmother tells me everyday that I have ruined her life by being born. Most days I wish I had never been born." And then she continues to sob and repeat some of the same stuff like, "she just doesn't want me." I asked her if I could pray for her and we stood there for a while praying. All the while, she was shaking and sobbing, knowing and learning that God loves her always and that when she feels useless that God is there. I can only hope that something has stirred within her to start the healing process of her life and to hopefully make her realize that, more than ever, she needs to graduate high school and get out of that toxic life that has plagued her for so long.

It's stories like this that make me feel mixed emotions. On the one hand, it's what keeps me coming to work day after day just to show these kids that there's someone out there who cares about them. On the other hand, it's the one thing that makes me want to give up day after day because their situations just seem so dismal. So impossible to overcome. But I guess that's the challenge of this job and this community. You just have to throw out the seeds and hope that a few of them hit fertile ground and miss the rocks.