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Got the word a few days ago about a young mother who committed suicide. As I reflected on the tragedy for her family and the community I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last time such news is reported. But for the first time (and I’m ashamed to admit it) I really started to wonder why. What in the world is going on? As I sat in services Sunday I wanted to jump up on stage, grab the mic and say, “No matter how bad you feel, no matter how dark the night that you are experiencing, no matter how deep the hole you feel you are in, please know that there is way out that does not include taking your own life. Forgive us – your community- for not seeing your pain and your desperation. We all do a pretty good job of putting on our masks and making things look a lot better than they are. But for the sake of everyone that knows and loves you, if someone is not walking along beside you and offering you some hope, then raise your hand, grab a minister or an elder, or just stand up and scream so that we can know your pain. There are alternatives to your dilemma that you cannot see from where you are. And the alternatives are not just an encouragement to “trust Jesus and be free…”. While I totally believe it that statement may not have enough skin on it to give you the hope you need to get through tonight. Let some of us who are travelling on the journey with you and trying to let Jesus live in us be the person you can hang on to. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help. We promise to not judge, condemn or even ask questions. Just let us sit with you and feel your pain. The time will come for confronting those demons, but that may not be right now. I promise that unless Jesus returns tonight, the sun will come up tomorrow, people we get out of bed and fix breakfast, dress the kids for school and go to work. Let us stay with you until you can start to see the sun. Whether it’s chemical, relational, medical, financial or some other function, there is a solution that results in life and hope and a future.”
Depression is real and is serious. It’s amazing to me that we will so easily and readily look for medicine to treat the flu but we’ll tell ourselves that we can just get over depression by trying harder to look on the bright side. If you’re reading this and feel that you’re at the end of your rope or if you even think you know someone who is, then call someone and get help. Don’t wait and don’t tell yourself that it’ll just get better – or worse, don’t tell yourself that it’ll never get better. There is hope. Ultimately that hope comes through the grace of Jesus. But for today that hope may have to come from somebody trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
11.25.09
Reaching out comes in many forms at Otter Creek. This past week I was blessed to go to Guatemala with a group of 6 other Otter Creeker’s and one from another congregation. This was the second year of a “business missions” trip. The idea came about 3 years ago from a medical mission trip several of us took. After spending several days in the rural countryside helping people with various medical issues, we spent the last few days in Guatemala City. As we travelled around the city we noticed a couple of interesting observations. First, there seemed to be a sufficient level of medical options for people living in the city. In fact, many of the medical options are quite sophisticated. Secondly, we noticed as we visited the local church that Otter Creek helps support that there were very few middle aged men. As we began to ask around we found that many of them had come to the US to look for work. They were small business owners and entrepreneurs who were unable to find work in the city. In leaving their family we learned that many of them never returned. This left many of the local church families broken and hurting and susceptible to local gangs who were moving in and looking for vulnerable women.
As our team thought about all of this we began to dream about a form of a “medical mission” trip revised to a “business mission: trip where instead of doctors and other trained medical professionals helping people in need of physical assistance, we would invite business owners, managers and trainers to come to the assistance of people in need of marketing, financial and general business assistance. Our belief is that by helping local church members who may be struggling in their business and family finances we would be able to help build a foundation for the church.
So this past week we travelled with a Dale Carnegie trainer, a financial investment professional, a health insurance administrator, a Habitat for Humanity family financial counselor and a single mom who is both a school nurse and runs her family’s finances. We met with members to discuss issues such as how to develop an income and expense statement, how to evaluate fixed and variable expenses, how to calculate costs of products that must be assembled prior to selling. We also met with singles moms, single fathers and husband & wife couples to discuss family finances and how to get their debt under control. We learned that credit card debt is a huge problem with interest rates around 60% - there is no truth in lending laws in Guatemala!! We also invited a micro-loan Guatemalan organization that we’re working with on several water well projects to come and present the basic business requirements they expect their loan applicants to adhere to.
We were blessed to hear one man who attended out conference last year tell us that he was out of debt based on the lessons we covered last year. We were able to spend a Sunday morning worship with our brothers and sisters in a multi-language service that humbled and inspired us. We’ve been invited back next year and are looking forward to who will step up and offer their services. If you’re interested in learning more, drop me an email.
As our team thought about all of this we began to dream about a form of a “medical mission” trip revised to a “business mission: trip where instead of doctors and other trained medical professionals helping people in need of physical assistance, we would invite business owners, managers and trainers to come to the assistance of people in need of marketing, financial and general business assistance. Our belief is that by helping local church members who may be struggling in their business and family finances we would be able to help build a foundation for the church.
So this past week we travelled with a Dale Carnegie trainer, a financial investment professional, a health insurance administrator, a Habitat for Humanity family financial counselor and a single mom who is both a school nurse and runs her family’s finances. We met with members to discuss issues such as how to develop an income and expense statement, how to evaluate fixed and variable expenses, how to calculate costs of products that must be assembled prior to selling. We also met with singles moms, single fathers and husband & wife couples to discuss family finances and how to get their debt under control. We learned that credit card debt is a huge problem with interest rates around 60% - there is no truth in lending laws in Guatemala!! We also invited a micro-loan Guatemalan organization that we’re working with on several water well projects to come and present the basic business requirements they expect their loan applicants to adhere to.
We were blessed to hear one man who attended out conference last year tell us that he was out of debt based on the lessons we covered last year. We were able to spend a Sunday morning worship with our brothers and sisters in a multi-language service that humbled and inspired us. We’ve been invited back next year and are looking forward to who will step up and offer their services. If you’re interested in learning more, drop me an email.
11.14.09
Got to meet a young family with 5 kids that called to ask for help with finding a new place to live. After being evicted from a previous house they were renting he’s finally gotten a job. To keep a roof over their heads when no one was working they had to move into a place that was not especially welcoming to a family with 5 kids. Now they are looking to relocate. They felt that with the husband making $12/hr they were ready. As I sat down with them to get to know them and them to know us it became apparent that, like most cases, what appears on the surface is not what is really taking place at all. We talked about budgeting and the need for planning and that where the opportunities started. They told me they had two cars, but they really just had one (the other had be repossessed the prior week), and the one they had was not running and it had a title loan on it. The more we talked the more I tried to get them to see that to keep from ending back up on the streets they probably needed to stay put for a while and save up some money to get themselves on a little more solid footing. This was not what they wanted to hear. I asked them to get their bills together as well as all their sources of income and that we’d meet again. But for now I recommended they stay where they were. I hope and pray they will call back, but many folks find it easier to keep looking for the answers they want to hear rather than a realistic answer that involves sacrifice, discomfort and some delaying of gratification – interesting that this sounds like me….
I was asked to speak with several different groups this week. I was blessed to get to meet with brothers and sister from Eastwood Christian Church to talk about the state of homelessness in Nashville and what individual churches can do to make a difference. I got to tell a little of Otter Creek’s journey over the past 3 years and where we now find ourselves. What a blessing to be welcomed into their fellowship and what potential for our two congregations to partner together to use the unique blessing God has given each of us to help the faith families in Nashville come together.
I was invited to speak to a social work class at Vol State in Gallatin. I spoke about the background of homelessness and poverty and the different motivations for survival. If you’ve never looked into Maslow’s hierarch of needs, it’s worth a read. Getting your arms around those basic principles helps to partially understand how much of the world lives and how many of us can step in and offer compassion in a way that encourages rather than enables.
A group of Vanderbilt grad students asked me to speak with them about the homeless moms & kids project that is underway through Otter Creek and The Shalom Foundation. Most people in Nashville cannot conceive that there are 2,200 homeless children in our city. Most of them have a homeless mom trying to make ends meet. While the solution is complicated many of use believe the answers start with available and affordable housing wrapped within a support structure that builds relationships in a new environment of community and trust. That’s what this project is all about. Stay tuned for more information or email me if you want to personally learn more.
On Saturday we were able to help three of the men in the Odyssey program at Room in the Inn get several hours of work by helping a friend of an Otter Creek member pack up and move. What a blessing to everyone involved. Thanks for thinking to ask. We gave several pieces of furniture to another church group looking to help a family moving from Tent City into an apartment. And we delivered a sofa, love seat, tables and chairs to a 23 year old mother of 6 that had to throw away all of her furniture due to bed bugs. She had spent the past few days scrubbing and cleaning the house and the kids and called to ask if we could help her get started again. We need 2 or 3 sets beds for this family as well. Right now we don’t have any bunk beds but we sure have the need. The kids are sleeping on a mattress on the floor. If you’d like to help, let me know.
I was asked to speak with several different groups this week. I was blessed to get to meet with brothers and sister from Eastwood Christian Church to talk about the state of homelessness in Nashville and what individual churches can do to make a difference. I got to tell a little of Otter Creek’s journey over the past 3 years and where we now find ourselves. What a blessing to be welcomed into their fellowship and what potential for our two congregations to partner together to use the unique blessing God has given each of us to help the faith families in Nashville come together.
I was invited to speak to a social work class at Vol State in Gallatin. I spoke about the background of homelessness and poverty and the different motivations for survival. If you’ve never looked into Maslow’s hierarch of needs, it’s worth a read. Getting your arms around those basic principles helps to partially understand how much of the world lives and how many of us can step in and offer compassion in a way that encourages rather than enables.
A group of Vanderbilt grad students asked me to speak with them about the homeless moms & kids project that is underway through Otter Creek and The Shalom Foundation. Most people in Nashville cannot conceive that there are 2,200 homeless children in our city. Most of them have a homeless mom trying to make ends meet. While the solution is complicated many of use believe the answers start with available and affordable housing wrapped within a support structure that builds relationships in a new environment of community and trust. That’s what this project is all about. Stay tuned for more information or email me if you want to personally learn more.
On Saturday we were able to help three of the men in the Odyssey program at Room in the Inn get several hours of work by helping a friend of an Otter Creek member pack up and move. What a blessing to everyone involved. Thanks for thinking to ask. We gave several pieces of furniture to another church group looking to help a family moving from Tent City into an apartment. And we delivered a sofa, love seat, tables and chairs to a 23 year old mother of 6 that had to throw away all of her furniture due to bed bugs. She had spent the past few days scrubbing and cleaning the house and the kids and called to ask if we could help her get started again. We need 2 or 3 sets beds for this family as well. Right now we don’t have any bunk beds but we sure have the need. The kids are sleeping on a mattress on the floor. If you’d like to help, let me know.
11.7.09
This past 10 days has been quite the journey for me and my family. The first part of last week was “business as usual” with some really exciting developments and connections being made towards gaining additional support for the homeless moms and kids housing project and for Tent City. I was asked to meet with the Vanderbilt Hillel Center to discuss with them how they might get more involved with Tent City. This is the Jewish student group on the Vandy campus and they have a real heart to reach out and offer service and support for people that are hurting. We discussed them pulling together students from several different disciplines that might use their education and talents to help address needs for Tent City and the people living there. For example, we’re working on a land plan for the TDOT property and they’ve offered to engage some of their engineering students to assist. They are thinking how some of their education majors could help with reading, math and GED training for folks that want to move ahead in areas they have ignored for many years. It’s an exciting opportunity for Otter Creek and the Jewish community to be partnering together.
On Thursday morning we were loading furniture from our storage house to a church group in Columbia to help them reach out to a family trying to get settled in an apartment. I got a call from my brother telling me to come to Vanderbilt hospital because my mother had been in an accident. When I got there I got the news that it appeared she had suffered a heart attack which resulted in her wrecking her car. The paramedics worked with her at the scene and at the ER but she never came around and died that morning. This is the first of my parents or my wife’s parents to die so it was a new chapter in our family’s journey. The next several days have been a blur of arrangements and details mixed with sadness, loss and grief. I know more of that will come in the days and weeks ahead. Having a church family like Otter Creek is a true blessing at times like this. Almost immediately we had offers of help pouring in. Cards and food starting arriving. Calls offering help in any way came to the house and to my cell phone.
It took a day to get the arrangements made but we had visitation on Friday and Saturday. Hundreds of people came to express their sympathy and support. Many people came who did not even know my mother – they came to support me or my brother. One of the most touching visits came when I looked up and saw 5 of my friends from Tent City walk in the funeral home. A friend from Otter Creek who has worked with me in Tent City had called to let that community know what had happened and offered to bring some of them to see me. I was humbled when I saw them. They came in and spent some time talking with me, meeting other members of my family and offering their condolences. I felt like I was being visited by the Holy Spirit. There was no reason for them to be at the funeral home other than to show their desire to weep with me. That’s what community is all about. I continue to learn more about life from some of the most unlikely places than I ever imagined. And I thank God for Otter Creek and for the opportunity to represent that community to many other communities around Nashville. We can all learn something from each other. And it’s at times like I’ve experienced that we can learn one of the most important lessons of all – love is the glue that binds us together. As we walk through good times and tough times, let’s take the time to show and accept love to all who cross our paths…
On Thursday morning we were loading furniture from our storage house to a church group in Columbia to help them reach out to a family trying to get settled in an apartment. I got a call from my brother telling me to come to Vanderbilt hospital because my mother had been in an accident. When I got there I got the news that it appeared she had suffered a heart attack which resulted in her wrecking her car. The paramedics worked with her at the scene and at the ER but she never came around and died that morning. This is the first of my parents or my wife’s parents to die so it was a new chapter in our family’s journey. The next several days have been a blur of arrangements and details mixed with sadness, loss and grief. I know more of that will come in the days and weeks ahead. Having a church family like Otter Creek is a true blessing at times like this. Almost immediately we had offers of help pouring in. Cards and food starting arriving. Calls offering help in any way came to the house and to my cell phone.
It took a day to get the arrangements made but we had visitation on Friday and Saturday. Hundreds of people came to express their sympathy and support. Many people came who did not even know my mother – they came to support me or my brother. One of the most touching visits came when I looked up and saw 5 of my friends from Tent City walk in the funeral home. A friend from Otter Creek who has worked with me in Tent City had called to let that community know what had happened and offered to bring some of them to see me. I was humbled when I saw them. They came in and spent some time talking with me, meeting other members of my family and offering their condolences. I felt like I was being visited by the Holy Spirit. There was no reason for them to be at the funeral home other than to show their desire to weep with me. That’s what community is all about. I continue to learn more about life from some of the most unlikely places than I ever imagined. And I thank God for Otter Creek and for the opportunity to represent that community to many other communities around Nashville. We can all learn something from each other. And it’s at times like I’ve experienced that we can learn one of the most important lessons of all – love is the glue that binds us together. As we walk through good times and tough times, let’s take the time to show and accept love to all who cross our paths…
10.26.09
This past week was the 2nd annual homeless vulnerability survey. Starting on Monday groups of folks arrive at Woodland Presbyterian church at 3:30AM to pair up and get their geographic assignments. We head out into the night looking for Nashville’s homeless. The idea is that we will actually survey each person (as opposed to just doing a head count) in order to gather answers to vital information. By asking questions such as a person’s age, how long they’ve been on the street and an in-depth series of medical, mental and addiction questions we determine their “vulnerability”. It’s well documented that hospital emergency rooms spend a disproportionate amount of their budgets dealing with repeat visitors who are chronically sick. Many of these are homeless men and women who have been classified as the most “vulnerable”. If our surveys and analysis of their answers can point us to the most “vulnerable” then (the theory goes) we should be able to first target these individuals for housing and other support services and reduce the visits they will have to the ER.
Personally I love going out and meeting folks sleeping on the streets and under bridges. Only occasionally do you run into someone who is belligerent. We take a thermos of hot coffee and a biscuit with us as well as offer them a McDonalds coupon for their cooperation. My experience is that they appreciate being respected and listened to. As I gave instructions to my team on how to interview I stressed that it was to be a conversation – not a series of questions to be answered so that you can get on to the next person. Listen to who they are and their stories. And what stories…
We met a man at 4AM sitting on a bench in downtown Nashville who had just been released from jail!! He wasn’t even from Nashville but had been arrested for a trespassing charge, held for a few hours and then put back out on the streets. We were able to point him to Room in the Inn where he was able to get something to eat and some directions for the rest of the day. At the back of the Municipal Auditorium we got to talk with 3 people sleeping on the heating vents (it was cold at 4AM in the morning!). Two women and a man watching out for each other and trying to figure out how to get housing. On a different day my team went to a WalMart where we met several people sleeping under the bridges leading into the parking lot. One man had been on the streets for 10 years. But what I noticed this year that I didn’t see last year was the number of women sleeping in their cars in the WalMart parking lots. Regardless of how you feel about WalMart, they do allow people to park and camp in their parking lots. I met a women who’s daughter had kicked her out of the house and another women who had lost her job, lost her house and simply knew of no other place to stay.
We turn in the survey results each morning where the answers are input into a computer and each question has a value assigned to it. Depending on the severity of the answer the computer totals the results and a list is made of the most “vulnerable”. As we walked the streets and climbed under the bridges and looked under the bushes for people, I reminded my team that the term “vulnerability” was nothing more than a nice way to say “the most likely to die”. The reality is that some of the folks that I interviewed will not see 2010. I pray that the time we were able to spend together while completing the vulnerability survey was a few minutes of dignity and respect that they will remember. I know I won’t forget it. Thanks to several other Otter Creeker’s who responded to my call for volunteers. I was moved and encouraged that we have people willing to get outside their comfort zone to serve “the least of these”.
Personally I love going out and meeting folks sleeping on the streets and under bridges. Only occasionally do you run into someone who is belligerent. We take a thermos of hot coffee and a biscuit with us as well as offer them a McDonalds coupon for their cooperation. My experience is that they appreciate being respected and listened to. As I gave instructions to my team on how to interview I stressed that it was to be a conversation – not a series of questions to be answered so that you can get on to the next person. Listen to who they are and their stories. And what stories…
We met a man at 4AM sitting on a bench in downtown Nashville who had just been released from jail!! He wasn’t even from Nashville but had been arrested for a trespassing charge, held for a few hours and then put back out on the streets. We were able to point him to Room in the Inn where he was able to get something to eat and some directions for the rest of the day. At the back of the Municipal Auditorium we got to talk with 3 people sleeping on the heating vents (it was cold at 4AM in the morning!). Two women and a man watching out for each other and trying to figure out how to get housing. On a different day my team went to a WalMart where we met several people sleeping under the bridges leading into the parking lot. One man had been on the streets for 10 years. But what I noticed this year that I didn’t see last year was the number of women sleeping in their cars in the WalMart parking lots. Regardless of how you feel about WalMart, they do allow people to park and camp in their parking lots. I met a women who’s daughter had kicked her out of the house and another women who had lost her job, lost her house and simply knew of no other place to stay.
We turn in the survey results each morning where the answers are input into a computer and each question has a value assigned to it. Depending on the severity of the answer the computer totals the results and a list is made of the most “vulnerable”. As we walked the streets and climbed under the bridges and looked under the bushes for people, I reminded my team that the term “vulnerability” was nothing more than a nice way to say “the most likely to die”. The reality is that some of the folks that I interviewed will not see 2010. I pray that the time we were able to spend together while completing the vulnerability survey was a few minutes of dignity and respect that they will remember. I know I won’t forget it. Thanks to several other Otter Creeker’s who responded to my call for volunteers. I was moved and encouraged that we have people willing to get outside their comfort zone to serve “the least of these”.
10.24.09
It was about 6 months ago that a fellow Otter Creek met me for breakfast with a copy of the front page of the Tennessean in hand. He laid it in front of me and asked “is this right?” The article was on homeless children in Nashville. It reported that the best estimate was 2,200 homeless children in the city. I told him I definitely thought it was right and probably even more than that. His next set of questions started a series of events that brings us to today…
“what’s the problem?” “There’s not enough housing for moms and their kids much less just for kids”
“how much is not enough?” “Not counting the women’s mission there are less than 100 rooms for homeless moms and their children”
“what would it take to have more housing?” “Money and a group willing to take the lead to pull together a consortium of service providers – there’s some great service providers that would gladly add service capacity but can’t afford to do that when they have to handle the cost of additional facilities”
“what’s a reasonable number of housing units that could be brought on before it gets cold later this year?” “probably another 100 or so rooms, but that would take a commitment of money that would be tied up in government bureaucracy for months or for private dollars to come available that hasn’t stepped up before now”
“How much money would you need?” “somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000”
“I’ll make some calls, get started putting the program together”
Since that time he has assembled a group of his friends from his business connections. We’ve had an organizational meeting, divided up into subgroups and had a few subgroup meetings. We’ve looked at several sites but not found anything until 2 weeks ago. We were contacted by a Christian real estate developer and investor who had 40 units of a 250 unit complex available. Over the phone we talked arrangements for a 12 month lease. I called the leadership group of three who conferred for less than 10 minutes and committed to a significant amount of money to not only lease the units but hire a case manager. The units are not furnished but I made one call and got a significant commitment from another congregation to lead that charge as well as head up making the arrangements for a daily evening community meal for all the moms and kids. We met this week with a group of service providers and have started to form up the vision for the “hole” that these units will fill – emergency stabilization housing for moms and kids that want to begin the transition process of getting housing along with the services they need to address their needs. The more we get into this project the more we learn that there is nothing else like this.
The need is huge and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of moms and kids is significant. The synergistic ties to establish relationships between service providers, between the moms and kids, between the churches offering assistance and between the moms and the churches is becoming a phenomenon that is approaching “holy status”. More to come on this later. For one way you can get involved check out Josh Graves blog and the invitation to jump in (http://www.joshuagraves.com/). I can’t express how proud I am of Otter Creek and how its members are stepping up and looking for ways to connect their gifts and their sense of need to the greater call of justice and mercy.
“what’s the problem?” “There’s not enough housing for moms and their kids much less just for kids”
“how much is not enough?” “Not counting the women’s mission there are less than 100 rooms for homeless moms and their children”
“what would it take to have more housing?” “Money and a group willing to take the lead to pull together a consortium of service providers – there’s some great service providers that would gladly add service capacity but can’t afford to do that when they have to handle the cost of additional facilities”
“what’s a reasonable number of housing units that could be brought on before it gets cold later this year?” “probably another 100 or so rooms, but that would take a commitment of money that would be tied up in government bureaucracy for months or for private dollars to come available that hasn’t stepped up before now”
“How much money would you need?” “somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000”
“I’ll make some calls, get started putting the program together”
Since that time he has assembled a group of his friends from his business connections. We’ve had an organizational meeting, divided up into subgroups and had a few subgroup meetings. We’ve looked at several sites but not found anything until 2 weeks ago. We were contacted by a Christian real estate developer and investor who had 40 units of a 250 unit complex available. Over the phone we talked arrangements for a 12 month lease. I called the leadership group of three who conferred for less than 10 minutes and committed to a significant amount of money to not only lease the units but hire a case manager. The units are not furnished but I made one call and got a significant commitment from another congregation to lead that charge as well as head up making the arrangements for a daily evening community meal for all the moms and kids. We met this week with a group of service providers and have started to form up the vision for the “hole” that these units will fill – emergency stabilization housing for moms and kids that want to begin the transition process of getting housing along with the services they need to address their needs. The more we get into this project the more we learn that there is nothing else like this.
The need is huge and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of moms and kids is significant. The synergistic ties to establish relationships between service providers, between the moms and kids, between the churches offering assistance and between the moms and the churches is becoming a phenomenon that is approaching “holy status”. More to come on this later. For one way you can get involved check out Josh Graves blog and the invitation to jump in (http://www.joshuagraves.com/). I can’t express how proud I am of Otter Creek and how its members are stepping up and looking for ways to connect their gifts and their sense of need to the greater call of justice and mercy.
10.23.09
The past few weeks have been quite the journey. I help my regular 12-step class at Mending Hearts (www.mendingheartsinc.org) on Tuesday Oct 6. I had intended to show a DVD but the player was broken so we ended up talking. One of the women who had just been released from prison talked about her “spiritual awakening”. This proved to be a topic of interest to many of the women so we explored what that meant to different people. Do you consider yourself to have had a spiritual awakening? How would you explain that to someone? An awakening implies that you were previously asleep. How would you describe that portion of your journey? What was it that caused the awakening? This is one of the reasons I love learning and teaching 12-step programs. These are questions that everyone should be considering.
On Thursday afternoon I got a call from one of the women who had been in Tuesday’s class to tell me that another one of the women had just died in her room at Mending Hearts. They were at the ER and asked me to come over. I hurried to the ER to see 20 women standing in the parking lot with tears in their eyes all hugging each other and sobbing. It seems that one of the women who had struggled with eating disorders and drugs had come in from school (she was going back to college) and laid down to rest and 15 minutes later was dead. We still don’t know what caused her to die. We took all the women back to the campus and met in the group room for the next several hours to process their thoughts and feelings. I was humbled and felt as if I was on holy ground as I listened to stores about this woman and how she was loved. I heard stories of regret and recommitments to a different way of life because of this tragedy. There are no answers to events like this. My counsel was for each of us to not run away from the pain but to be willing to be in it for a few days and be aware of how God might be talking to us and to learn from this time.
On Monday of the following week we took a group of the women to Kentucky to participate in the funeral and burial. We got to meet family members and friends who were mourning and hurting. Many had not seen this young woman for a long time. We got to her stories from her childhood and see pictures of her before the disease and the drugs started to destroy her. It reminded me that babies and children are beautiful and that we have such a responsibility to nurture and raise them so that they have the chance to ask good questions and make good decisions (I realize that “good” is subjective, but it would be hard to argue that somewhere in this woman’s life she began to make less-than-good decisions). But we also have to realize that even the best parenting and environments are still no guarantee that children will not make serious, life-changing mistakes. While evil is ultimately not as powerful as God, it is real and it does exert an influence on us that can take us off the course that God would desire. We saw the effects of that in this woman’s life. It has made an impact on me and on many of the women who knew her. How will we live from this day forward as a result of having been through this experience? Will the learning from this time soon fade away as the pressures of the present push the past away? Do we grasp that one day we will be the one that others are seeing at the funeral home? How will our lives be remembered? I believe I was able to talk with the Mending Hearts women and tell about a view of life from the mind of Jesus. I now realize I need to be able to talk about a view of death and resurrection from that same perspective. There’s got to more to this journey than what we experienced in this woman’s life. Surely there is hope for a tomorrow. I believe there is and I believe that those of us who put our hope in Jesus need to know that story and be ready to offer it as comfort to our fellow sojourners on the road of life…
On Thursday afternoon I got a call from one of the women who had been in Tuesday’s class to tell me that another one of the women had just died in her room at Mending Hearts. They were at the ER and asked me to come over. I hurried to the ER to see 20 women standing in the parking lot with tears in their eyes all hugging each other and sobbing. It seems that one of the women who had struggled with eating disorders and drugs had come in from school (she was going back to college) and laid down to rest and 15 minutes later was dead. We still don’t know what caused her to die. We took all the women back to the campus and met in the group room for the next several hours to process their thoughts and feelings. I was humbled and felt as if I was on holy ground as I listened to stores about this woman and how she was loved. I heard stories of regret and recommitments to a different way of life because of this tragedy. There are no answers to events like this. My counsel was for each of us to not run away from the pain but to be willing to be in it for a few days and be aware of how God might be talking to us and to learn from this time.
On Monday of the following week we took a group of the women to Kentucky to participate in the funeral and burial. We got to meet family members and friends who were mourning and hurting. Many had not seen this young woman for a long time. We got to her stories from her childhood and see pictures of her before the disease and the drugs started to destroy her. It reminded me that babies and children are beautiful and that we have such a responsibility to nurture and raise them so that they have the chance to ask good questions and make good decisions (I realize that “good” is subjective, but it would be hard to argue that somewhere in this woman’s life she began to make less-than-good decisions). But we also have to realize that even the best parenting and environments are still no guarantee that children will not make serious, life-changing mistakes. While evil is ultimately not as powerful as God, it is real and it does exert an influence on us that can take us off the course that God would desire. We saw the effects of that in this woman’s life. It has made an impact on me and on many of the women who knew her. How will we live from this day forward as a result of having been through this experience? Will the learning from this time soon fade away as the pressures of the present push the past away? Do we grasp that one day we will be the one that others are seeing at the funeral home? How will our lives be remembered? I believe I was able to talk with the Mending Hearts women and tell about a view of life from the mind of Jesus. I now realize I need to be able to talk about a view of death and resurrection from that same perspective. There’s got to more to this journey than what we experienced in this woman’s life. Surely there is hope for a tomorrow. I believe there is and I believe that those of us who put our hope in Jesus need to know that story and be ready to offer it as comfort to our fellow sojourners on the road of life…
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