The Best Is Yet to Come

And thus begins the deconstruction of my hardened heart,

                    
              as others' pain becomes more important than my own;
             
                                                        as I stop worrying about being right or wrong and just be;

                       as I realize I am as fallible as the next;

as actions become more important than words;

                                         as I learn forgiveness is a process, not immediate;

                 as I learn to love people for who they are and not who I want them to be;

                              as I learn to be content with what I have when I have it;


And while each hardened piece is chipped and melted away, the pang of regret, change, and reality sometimes steals my breath and leaves me trembling. Exposed. Jaded. Disbelieving.


And then a look,

                              a word,

                  an embrace,

        reminds me why I am here

and why I must continue this journey.


Because someone

                 somewhere

                         at some point

will be in these same shoes,

                   And at that time I will be able to say, I've been there too.

                                             Don't give up, the best is yet to come.

                      


                                                     

Resilience

So I'm a couple months into my last year of grad school. It's been a pretty crazy ride. I've been put in situations I never thought I'd be in. My beliefs have been challenged on every level possible, and I've questioned more of myself than I knew there was. But it's the questioning... and the not being afraid of the questioning, that has made me grow.

This past week was the hardest yet at my internship. I'm placed at a youth crisis center. We focus on runaways and homeless kids ages 7-17, with smaller programs to help kids aging out of foster care. It's a seriously amazing program, but that's not what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about the kids. The soldiers. The fighters. The ones that get dealt the hard hand in life for no reason at all, and they're left on their own to pick up the pieces. I met some girls this past week, 5 girls from 13-16. I'm pretty sure if I were to look up resilience in the dictionary right now, their pictures would be beside it. Abused by parents, looked over, not as preferred as the younger sister. Beaten by the boyfriend. Taken advantage of by someone almost 3 times her age.

Blamed.

                                                            Despised.

                             Rejected.

Broken
                Into
                          Pieces.


                                     They have to be hard so the world doesn't kill them.

                  Invisible so they can be

                                                                      SAFE.

On Tuesday I had to ask one of them if she really meant it when she told me she had wanted to jump off a bridge before. "Do you want to hurt yourself? Do you want to hurt anyone else? Do you have plans for either?"

I try to put myself in these girls shoes, no matter how long its been since I was their age. I try to imagine what it would feel like to truly know and feel like "my mother loves my little sister more than me"... "Why don't my parents want me? Why don't they love me? What did I do wrong...?"

            "Why?"


I had the chance to speak truth over the two most difficult girls before the week was over.

                                       As she walked out the door, more than likely to go back to her abuser boyfriend, I looked at her and said, "We can't make you stay here. It's your choice to go if that's what you want. But please, please know... we care about you here. We all care about you... and you know where to find us."
                 As she sat in front of me with tears streaming down her face pleading for the love and approval of her mother, yet feeling such strong disdain and anger for the abuse, I was able to tell her what I saw when I looked past the frustration. "You are strong. You're a survivor. You lived this and you made it through. And whether or not you see it, you are stronger because of it, in a way that no one else will be because they have not walked in your shoes. You will  make it through this and you will be okay. You will.
                                          Because you are strong.
                                                                                   You are resilient."

Give Me Your Glue

I think it really began four years ago in Kenya when I realized I was wrong for trying to trade a street kid bread for his glue. I thought I was doing the right thing by taking it away, after all, what does an uneducated street kid know? However, as he walked away with bread in his hand and his glue in mine, I realized my own ignorance. The bread would be gone in less than 5 minutes, and it wouldn't be enough to satisfy him. He would have more glue in probably less than 30 minutes. So really, what was the point of taking it away?

The point, I think, was to make myself feel okay about giving him bread. Heaven forbid he ever expect handouts from someone, especially a white tourist. Heaven forbid I ever give him food just because he's hungry. I knew pretty quickly that I was wrong. Jesus' love for me never came with conditions, so why should I set conditions on this homeless child?

There's something about coming face to face with the "beast inside myself", as Donald Miller so aptly describes, that makes me beyond ashamed of myself. For the first time in my life I was exposed to white priveledge, which was uncomfortable enough, but also the reality that I really did believe I knew better. Seriously? What the hell do I know about survival? I've never lived on the streets a day in my life, so how could I pretend to know better? In the end, I kept the bottle of glue to remind me of the look in the boy's eyes as he hid the glue in his shirt and told me it was "his health". His health, meaning it satisfies him. It keeps him warm at night. It curbs the hunger pains. It keeps reality at bay so he doesn't feel the pang of survival.

My perspective changed each time I came into contact with the street boys in Kapsabet. One boy Collins especially had a hand in the change. I was collecting bottle caps for a school project, and I told him if he helped me collect some I would buy him something to eat. He quickly picked up a few bottle caps off the ground, so I took him to our favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant. He ordered some chapati and orange Fanta. As I paid for the food, my team member asked if we should ask for his glue. I told her she could try if she wanted. She knelt down in front of him and asked for his glue, her hand held out. He shook his head and hid the glue in his shirt. "Give me your glue. No glue, no bread." Again he shook his head. People were beginning to watch. Again, "no glue, no bread!" Collins looked at me with panic in his eyes, and I knew he was ready to bolt. And the words just came out.. "It's okay. Don't worry about it. Keep your glue," I said, knowing full well I had just embarrassed my teammate upfront of everyone. His face relaxed and he continued eating. People continued to stare. My teammate stormed out. I felt bad for making her look bad, but I knew at that moment in time, Collins needed to experience unconditional love more than she needed to save face.
"Come to Me all who are weary, and I will give you rest." Or in this case, bread and orange Fanta. I felt like God had just shown me what he does for me every day. He never says "Gloria, come to me and I'll give you rest... but only if you leave your pride at the door. Only if you leave your judgement at the door... Only if you give me your glue."