Stepping Outside the Box

What is it that I want to do with my Social Work degree? Haha...I wonder if some people think I am crazy when I answer that question. My brother and I are going to be co-owners of a business. We want to have a place styled like a music venues--fun, real laid back, music all the time (I love music). This venue-type place is going to be strictly for teenagers. I hope to encourage self-expression, individuality, creativity, community, and conversation. I hope it will give something for teenagers to do in a town where there is nothing to do. I hope I can stir up conversation about real issues that we never talk about--self-harm, suicide, depression, cancer, eating disorders, whatever fears they may have, stuff like that. Also, I hope to have nights where I can stand up in front of them and educate them about these kinds of issues and tell them of ways they can get help with these issues. We will definitely have bands come play. THEIR paintings, drawings, poetry, photography, and what not will be put up all over the walls. I hope to have open mic nights where they can play music or read their poetry or whatever. Also along with this venue-type place, we hope to open a counseling center for teens (my brother and I are both social work majors). We hope that since these teenagers will know us they will trust us, and if they need counseling or just someone to talk to, they will come to us or at least let us refer them to someone we know. I know alot of teenagers that have to help support their families or that have to support themselves, so I hope to be able to provide a service at our counseling center that helps them find jobs.

Yeah, that's my future, or at least, I hope it is. I can't wait. It's going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it.

We're Made to be Lovers Bold in Broken Places

I thought about posting this, and then I thought about not posting this, and then I thought "Oh, I'll share." It's good to share this story that's at the beginning anyway. This was my lesson last Wednesday night. Yes, there is a cuss word in it. Yes, I said it in church. I believe reality and the truth is important, and I believe that her story/her reality/her life should not be edited. I believe it is important to leave that in there.
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Tonight I am going to use a story to open up with. It is amazing how well this story ties in with the subject we are studying tonight. Also it is not just a story, but something that actually happened that someone wrote down. Jamie wrote this story about 2 years ago. It is called To Write Love on her Arms.
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TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS.by jamie tworkowski

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

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.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=61976377&blogID=96896737&Mytoken=0E826F31-0536-47CE-845D380572BEE71F2781953
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Tonight we are talking about love…God’s love and the love we should have for each other. I wanted to use this story, because I thought maybe someone here could relate in someway or another. I wanted to use it, because it is real and happened just a couple years ago. It is the best modern-day example of love that I know of.

What do you think love is?

One definition I found in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary is: “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as the fatherly concern of God for humankind or brotherly concern for others.”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/love

The definition I found in the back of one of my Bibles (NIV) is: “wanting good to come to another person; being concerned and willing to work for another person’s benefit.”

Think about that second definition again…”being concerned and willing to work for another’s benefit.” Have you ever thought about love that way? You care so much about a person that you are willing to do anything to help.

The Bible also gives us a definition of love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV) says:
1And now I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

According to 1 Corinthians, the “most excellent way” is love. It states all these amazing things, speaking in tongues, having the gift of prophecy, having a faith that can move mountains, giving everything to the poor, but says that you can do any of this but if you do it without love in your heart it means nothing, you are nothing, you gain nothing. It then continues to define what love is. It says love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth, love protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. Love never fails.

I want to take you back to our story that Jamie wrote. This is what Jamie said about love: “When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better.” How true! Love is something better. Love is not self-seeking…they did not take shifts with her; they gave all their energy to her. Love protects…Isn’t that what they were doing? Staying with her…being her five day hospital…protecting her from the pain she might cause herself. Love is kind, love is not rude…we see this represented when she went with them to church. Remember her arms are scarred; she might have recent cuts on her arms. “Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone.” These people were kind; they weren’t rude; they did not judge her. They loved her; they encouraged her. How do you think you would react if someone like her came into your church? Do you think you could love her and encourage her like these people did?

We’ve seen how the Bible describes love, and we have read how love can move and be expressed in this story. Let’s see what else the Bible has to say about love.

1 John 4:7-12 (NIV) reads:
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Here we learn that love comes from God, and God is love. Verse 10 says “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God’s love for us is so amazing that he sent his son to give us life. Since God loved us so much, we should also love each other. The last part of this scripture says: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” We read something like this in Jamie’s story. He wrote, “God 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.” This is exactly what the Bible is talking about “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and is made complete in us.” “God is not invisible when we come alive.” We are taught in 1 John to love one another, so God’s love will be made complete in us. If we love other people, if we become that definition of love that we read in 1 Corinthians, people will see God’s love through our love for them. God will come alive through us. He will not longer be invisible.

It’s amazing how much just loving someone with all your heart can do. We see it in this story—one broken girl surrounded by friends who decided to be the body of Christ coming alive, who decided loving her was the best thing they could. She is now out of rehab. She still is battling her demons, but she is doing much better. She recently wrote a book and is on tour with some of her friends that are in a band. Through the love of Christ, through the love of these people, through her own faith, she overcame depression, addiction, and self-harm.

Maybe you’ve never felt this unconditional love. Maybe it is something you really want…something you crave. You can get this kind of love from God. He sent his Son to die for YOU, so your sins could be washed away, so you could be made new. When you accept God into your life, He gives you unconditional love. No matter what you go through, He will always be there; He will always love you. Romans 8:38-39 says: “38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If you don’t have this kind of relationship with God and want to trade death for life, talk to me or someone else you know that can help show you how to accept Christ.

I want to leave you with Jamie’s words: “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.”
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I want to add some links to the bottom.

To Write Love On Her Arms started as a story and t-shirts, but it grew into a non-profit organization. Here are some links to them:
http://www.twloha.com/
http://www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms

Renee's book tour ends on November 23. If you can go to one of the shows, I encourage you to. I didn't get to go, but I imagine it is awesome. Also there are some excerpts from the book on the myspace, so go check it out people:
http://www.myspace.com/purposeforthepain

Looks like I'm done writing for tonight.

With much love,
Kt Mac :D