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I dont know what to think.
I want to cry, but the anger of it all is holding back my tears.
I am glad I didnt get my hopes up too high, but I got them high enough to be dissapointed when she told me the news.
I knew I was going to be upset.
I dont want to think about it, but it’s upsetting beyond belief.
Wow.
What to think.
What not to think.
Here come the tears.

I havent been on here much.
:(
I went shopping today and had sooo much fun .
:D
My hands are like ice.
:/
I need some motivation.
:(

I am so confused.
I dont understand.
I am naive.
I am clingy.
I am complicated.
I need things explained to me.

That is who I am.

Please be patient with me and realize that I’m still learning, I’m sorry you have to see the strength inside me burning.

we’re making bread.
cottage cheese and chive bread.
:)
my toes are cold.
:/
I’m happy today.
:)
We are going out to dinner tonight with the group.
:)
“your friendships are important.”
:)
i need to get oout of my jammers and put on some clothes.
:)
I’m kinda hungry, even after eating all that bread dough.
haha.
:)

I’m leaving now.
lovesss.

This is near and dear to my heart.
This is me, in a sense.
I’m not the girl in the story, but Im the girl out of the story, by God’s grace.

She 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 many drugs that she is so familiar with. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask her 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 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 to what she thinks is oblivion.

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 meaningless stories

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 her, 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 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.

Its raining.
For the first time in two weeks.
:)
I made a huge pan of brownies.
for no particular reason.
:D
My calcium helped tremendously.
:)
Joni Eareckson Tada, you inspire me daily. I pray that we shall meet in Glory someday.
:D
“Sometimes God allows what He hates, to accomplish what He loves.”
:)
I love my Bible, and every word in it.
:)

ily.ily.ily.
:D

I need calcium.
enough said.
:(

I am ex-haus-ted tonight.
:/
I told her so much.
& it felt right and okay.
:)
I had an amazing hamburger for din-din.
:D
I really need to find some motivation to finish my “notebook”
:(
Tomorrow is so important to me.
TWLOHA.
I am writng love on my arm.
because my scars are beautiful.
:)
I am out.
Going to try to read a bit of my “Joni” Biography.
& then I am dead to the world.
just me, my pillow, my john deere comfy blankie and my bear.
I know, alot to sleep with.
haha.
Night everyone.
Sleep well & cuddle much.
:)

Saw this at a quilt show in Ocala this morning.

Amazing.

:)

i run in circles.
i cant seem to find the door.
but so many windows.
i lay on the floor.
i cry but to no avail.
you help me, you hurt me.
one outweighs the other
and i cant seem to make sense of the difference.
does your help hurt my heart?
do i internalize your thoughtful words, your encouragemnets and your constructive uplifts
transforming them, turning them into misery, pain and heartache?
i wonder if your hurt comforts me.
without hurt there would be no inspiration.
is love my simple hate and hate my complicated love?

What do you think?