There Are No Mistakes.

1) The girls have already absolutely stolen my heart.
2) I’ve learned a lot about myself these past two weeks. (And this process will continue, I’m sure.)
3) It’s going to be a challenging year.

Yesterday ended my initial training. Beginning Sunday, I will be acting as a residential counselor on my own. I’m so excited to fully step into that role. I’m also very well aware that these girls will likely do all that they can to pull the wool over my eyes. One of the most frustrating parts of the job for me is that I can’t fully trust any of the girls’ word. I’ve learned which ones are generally more reliable than others and begun to pick up on the areas that certain girls lie about on a regular basis. It’s made me appreciate the people in my life who I can trust all the more – the ones who will tell you how it really is, regardless of any implications.

Overall, it was an amazing shift. I think the girls are beginning to trust me even just a little bit. They show it subtle ways. One extremely independent girl asked me to french braid her hair for her. A girl read six or seven raps to me that she had written herself. One girl who was trying to put on an act finally admitted the truth to me because “I acted like I really cared.” Another showed me a page of her diary that she said no one had ever seen before.

Those moments when they open their hearts to me just a tiny bit make the very long, sometimes stressful days very, very worth it. I close each evening by going to each of the girls rooms to say goodnight and pray with those who will let me. How can that not give me the energy to wake up the next morning for the next long day? It’s more than worth it. Praying with them also reminds me of why I am ultimately doing this job. It’s about more than their drug addictions. Much, much more. At the end of the day, it’s their hearts I’m concerned about.

I definitely had several moments this last week in which I wished little bits of me could be different for this job. I wished I weren’t white. I wished I personally knew what it was like to fight a substance addiction. I wished I had a louder personality. But every time I was reminded that I am who God made me to be. God didn’t want someone else to have this job. He chose me. All of me. Not just the parts that made me capable. There are no mistakes.

I know the same is true of the girls I work with. It’s not a mistake that some were born to parents who use. It’s not even a mistake that some have been abused. It’s a tragedy, an absolute tragedy. Those things break my heart, and I know God’s tears were filled with more sadness than any of ours. But they weren’t mistakes. God can use even those horrible, horrible things in their lives. I know that’s hard to believe now, but I believe that with all of my heart.

Please pray for my girls. They’re all such beautiful people. And please pray for me. My R.C. job begins with a bang on Sunday – I have 14 hours alone with the girls. Please pray for that time.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours.

I’m learning what real days off look like. And they’re beautiful. I was so busy in college that when I wasn’t in classes I was always in meetings or tutoring or writing or studying. And the little time that wasn’t spent stressing over one thing or another was devoted to the special people in my life. In other words, I might as well have been a fish … I forgot to breathe.

Dr. Lunde – one of the most amazing professors I had at Biola – once talked about the concept of “grace breaths.” He described them as the act of taking the time to slow down and breathe and be thankful to God for something as simple as that. In breathing, you could thank God for life, for love, for the grace He has given us. We should all be allowed to do that, even if only once a day for 30 seconds. I forget this often. But when I remember, my view on where I am radically changes.

My days off last week were filled with non-stop grace breaths. I thanked God and re-thanked Him and re-thanked Him. And I prayed to Him too about many, many things. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I worked all day – usually 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. with a few hours off in the early afternoon. Needless to say, my fish-like capacities kicked in. But my breaks on those days were focused around grace breaths. That crucial time I spent re-centering each day is what gave me the ability to go back on shift, full of energy and with the right motivation for what I was doing.

I worked 54 hours in just four days. That is what every week for this next year will look like. Holy crap. But you know what? I have the blessing of being able to go through full days with these girls. I’ll be waking them up in the mornings and saying goodnight to them and praying with them in their rooms before they (hopefully) go to sleep. In that sense, this job swallows the typical 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. job and becomes a lifestyle, not just a job.

It was an insightful, information-packed, tough, discouraging, enlightening, uplifting week. I shadowed the senior counselor Bree this week, which basically meant that I watched her to do my job. I spent a lot of time with the girls trying to get to a feel for them. I got asked a lot of questions. Have you done drugs? Are you a virgin? What’s your favorite type of alcohol? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you bi? Have you smoked pot?

I also had a lot of anger directed at me. These girls have all been hurt very deeply and as a result are very hardened. I’m a new person who they can’t trust, and they know I’m going to have a level of control over their lives and enforce rules that they already feel controlled by. They’re very clearly trying to feel me out. And a lot of this was done through testing me and very clearly expressing that they don’t want me there.

As Dr. Eastman from NOVA Academy – the charter high school in Santa Ana I volunteered in this last year that works with at-risk youth – told me, “Sometimes people go into those jobs expecting it to be like a slumber party with hair-braiding and heart-to-heart talks when it’s more like, “Who the hell are you?! Get the F out of my face!”

I believed him then, and if there had been any skeptics, they were proven wrong this last week. Getting to know these girls is going to take a long time, and I’m okay with that. And getting cussed out happens many, many times a day with this job, I’ve learned. But when you can guess what’s behind the cussing out, it’s really not that bad or personally hurtful. Rather, it breaks my heart. Their anger is loaded with all of the pain and crap that they have been through. And even though it’s directed at me or at another staff member, I know it has nothing to do with us. But it has everything to do with the things that made them turn toward drug addiction.

I found immense joy in the little things this week. Making a girl smile. A talk about a girl’s past love. A game of Apples to Apples. An apology. A girl deciding not to run. Giving out honest compliments freely. Learning how to smile and keep going when insulted. A hug. Many games of Skip-bo. Recognizing that polite niceties won’t work here – I need to mean every word I say. Attending NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings with the girls, and seeing lives that have changed and being able to pray for those still burdened. A training seminar that couldn’t have had better timing.

I’m working Saturday and then Monday through Wednesday this next week, and now it’s my turn to be shadowed by Bree. Although it’s a bit intimidating, I’m also excited to fully jump in and learn and learn and learn. I have an amazing supervisor (Alex) and senior counselor to learn from. I’m also ready to feel deeply. The lyrics “Break my heart for what breaks Yours” have come to my mind many times these past few days, particularly at an NA meeting I attended last night.

I never want this job to become about the surface of my interactions with these girls or about how our interactions/relationships make me feel. Instead, I want my interactions to be what they need and what can best help them with where they’re at. I think that a lot of that will involve selflessness and love and consistency on my part in the face of a lot of opposition that they put up. And I think that can best be done with a broken and filled heart.

I’m praying for God to give me the strength to be broken and then to fill me with His love.

My Snazzy Room

A Start

Ephesians 3:17-20 has been my life passage for the last few years. It talks about being “rooted and grounded in love” and knowing the love of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge. This picture of love is so beautiful, so vast, and so wildly unknown. But I think that I will learn so much more about this type of love during this next year. It’s what I think I will need to truly help these girls.

I met them for the first time briefly yesterday and then spent more time with them today, and I already feel so strongly for them. I want so badly for them to grow, to overcome their struggles, and to discover wisdom and truth. The small victories today were so joyful, and their areas of pain or refusal definitely stung. The girls already have my heart.

I had orientation this morning, which consisted of paperwork and introductions to the program. I was then able to sit in on the weekly casing at my house, in which the residential staff meets with the caseworkers and addiction counselors to discuss each girl’s progress or hindrance. If any of the girls have petitioned to move up a phase in the program, that is also discussed and voted on, along with any overall issues. It was extremely interesting to sit in on, and I think I’m going to really look forward to that every week. We then had a house meeting with the girls, got dinner, and then just got to spend some time together. I got some basic training from the house supervisor, and this next week I will be shadowing the assistant supervisor.

I’m so looking forward to this time of learning. I already feel like I’m on information overload, and although I think this feeling will continue for months and months, I’m excited that I’ll be working a job in which I’ll always be learning more. There are just so many small things to take into consideration in this setting. For instance, the girls cannot handle any chemicals, including cleaners like windex. When their chores require cleaning surfaces, one of the staff members has to squirt and hold the container at all times. The girls cannot keep items like razors or scissors with them, so they have to check those items out from us. Every action of theirs can earn them positive or negative points, which affect their ability to move up a phase. There is a lot of protocol that I have to learn all about.

Although I did get opportunities to talk with the clients today, a lot of my day was spent watching the staff interact with them. I feel so blessed that I’m going to get to know these girls and spend day after day with them, supporting them and encouraging them to grow. I look forward to sharing in those small (and large) victories and also trying to ease their pain and refusals. I know that some days will be rough. But despite where any of these girls are coming from, it’s so clear to me that they have so much love to offer.

Goal for the Year: To find selfless, boundless love within myself and through my Savior and pour it on thick.