She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to
cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had
it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night
and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know
instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to
wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our
broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are
always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in
the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a
privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but
that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been
challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so
many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our
hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I
agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God
would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that
matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but
more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed
in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been
simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her
the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the
coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her
something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her.
Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she
was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless.
We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the
rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly
break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made
to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and
again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive
now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness
but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope
and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to
cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had
it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night
and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know
instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to
wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our
broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are
always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in
the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a
privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but
that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been
challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so
many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our
hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I
agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God
would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that
matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but
more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed
in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been
simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her
the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the
coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her
something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her.
Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she
was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless.
We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the
rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly
break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made
to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and
again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive
now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness
but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope
and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
| My Profile
To Write Love On Her Arms. group
