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.