Tear Them Down

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. And what a crazy few weeks it’s been. A girl was discharged for starting a fight. Another came out with her pregnancy. We got two new girls. I almost had a plate thrown at me on Wednesday — unfortunately, the poor phone and wall didn’t luck out like I did. In any case, the last two weeks were extremely stressful for me for various reasons.

In a way, I’m glad I didn’t blog last weekend because I wasn’t in a place to. I came off my shift last week absolutely exhausted and not wanting to be real with myself because I knew that would be even more exhausting. Walls can be tough to put up, but once you get good at doing that, it’s even tougher to pull them down. And that’s the process I’m currently working on.

Tearing down those walls.

Being raw.

It’s difficult to find that balance between allowing yourself to feel pain as well as protecting yourself. I’m working on it. Please pray for me in this area especially. Walls in the Bible have a tendency of being breached or demolished. I truly believe I can serve God better without mine.

These girls are teaching me so much. They are all such beautiful people, and I love hearing their stories and seeing bits of their hearts. I so cherish the moments when they’re vulnerable and open, whether it’s about abuse they’ve experienced, gang life and wanting to return to it, or even just missing someone in their lives. These girls are young. They’ve been through so much that I think I forget that sometimes. But I’m 22 and I know I miss my mom. How much more do they?

It’s not the sort of job in which you receive a lot of appreciation. It shows in the little things every day, and I try not to take those things for granted. But this last week one of the girls gave me this simple compliment during house group: “Karin, I compliment you on putting up with so much of our shit this week. And I encourage you to stay strong.”

It was a hard week, but to have just one of the girls recognize that too was all I needed to keep going.

I have no idea what to expect from this upcoming week.

But this isn’t exactly a job that you can prepare yourself for on a weekly basis now, is it? You have to be okay with not knowing.

In that sense, maybe you can prepare yourself – you can put that uncertainty in God’s hands. You can trust that He holds each day, each girl, each hurt, each word uttered in His weathered, perfect, holy hands. I’m not perfect at this by any means, but weeks like this last one don’t give me any other choice. And I want to become better at even trusting Him during the easiest of easy days.

Please pray for my house right now. We’re going through a lot of transition, and I pray that it will be for the best in the end. God has a purpose for everything.

A love that doesn't stop.

I went to Santa Cruz today with two friends from work, Mary and Jason, and our discussion over gyros turned into sharing our testimonies. I was telling them about how my faith did a 180 about two and a half years ago. God was the most openly evident in His love and faithfulness to me at the time when I deserved it the least, when I was not living like I should have been. Regardless of what I was doing, He was still relentless in His love for me and came alongside me and my pain. I was finally able to see that His love for me was not dependant on what I did or didn’t do. He loved me with perfect love always because He is God. When I finished telling them this, Mary replied, “And that’s basically what our job is.”

It’s only taken me a month and a half to see this.

Unconditional love is so crazy and so beautiful to me. I’ve only just begun to accept what that looks like coming from God. As people, we are obviously not capable of unconditional love, but we can try to get as close to it as possible and let God fill in the rest.

I came off of a very crazy week. Monday consisted of waking up to one girl throwing up before school, writing an incident report about misused medications, making a report to Child Protection Services about an unreported case of abuse, and having a new girl arrive. And that was just Monday. Tuesday consisted of a girl getting so mad at a decision I made that she literally yelled at me for minutes – best cuss-out session I’ve received yet – and then threatened to relapse because of me. That was also the day that a girl interrupted me mid-sentence to tell me exactly how ugly I was. I could go on, but I think you get the picture: This was not my most pleasant week.

But you know what? I left my shift still very much loving each girl and having their individual situations on my heart during this break. Either I’m crazy or God has a hold on my heart … I’m definitely going with option two.

This job is draining, but it is so worth it and is rocking my world and how I see things. Having a girl open up to you and tell you about how her gang involvement started at the age of 8 will do that to you. Having a girl re-processing a rape with you will do that as well. Having a new girl arrive, excited to not be locked up like she was for the past two months in the hall also will.

These girls are touching my life in so many ways, and I only pray that I can do the same for them. I’ve seen how my heart has changed since God showed me how much I am worth and how His love for me is fully unconditional. I know He can do the same for each of them.