I have a friend. I will keep her
name anonymous for now, but I have known her for a little over a year. I first
met her picking her up from a women’s homeless shelter. I was given the
opportunity to take her to be apart of my church growth group. It was a bunch
of us college age students and she was more than happy to be apart and get to
know new people. I enjoyed getting to know her. She had a fun personality,
though she seemed nervous, and anxious many of times. I asked her why and she
blurted out much of her past, her insecurities, and her sins to me. She has
told me it was to tell me the worst of her so that way she would know if I
would run away. Instead I could only reflect on the truth that God has taken me
from my brokenness and sin and into his loving and gracious arms, and I wanted
to display nothing but the grace that God had given to me, and still gives me,
to my friend. There had been many up and downs to our friendship, and my heart
would be excited when I thought I saw God moving but I’ll be honest…many of
times I’ve been disappointed. The scary part is emotionally investing in
someone and trying to understand and feel their hurts and pains and sometimes I
found it hurt me. In the year that we have known each other I too would pull
back from the friendship because I just didn’t know how to help and it hurt
knowing there was nothing I could do. Our friendship has had its lulls and I
have often times put it in the back burner…first just because life can get
crazy busy, and second because so it seemed we were parting ways. Until God,
for whatever reason, burdened my heart HEAVY for my friend. I wasn’t sure why.
So I prayed through these things. I decided to get lunch with her not to long
ago. I assumed things might be the same and just as always I wanted to be her
friend, whether she was doing well or doing bad. But she was telling me she knew
she wanted something drastic to happen in the new year of 2014. She then told
me about a program that perked my ears. It is called teen challenge. It’s a yearlong
commitment to help with drugs, alcohol, and spiritual bondage. They use
biblical principles to help the women who go there with these things. Unlike
most commitments to an organization I felt different about this one as she was
describing it. After our lunch I decided to take a look at it for myself. It
sounds wonderful…I then saw this movie trailer called “Gimme Shelter.” It was
pretty much a representation of the hardships and pain my friend has had to go
through in her life and yet…there was hope, hope in God, hope in Christ, hope
in community. I went to look at show times and it was only played at one
theater in town and a late show time at 10pm. I was determined to take my
friend to see this movie. So I told her I wanted to have a special night where
I would take her to get some dinner, fill out the application for teen
challenge, watch this movie together, and she would spend the night at my home
thanks to all my roommates. We filled out the application and I could tell even
then it was not going to be the easiest process for my friend, as she had to
answer some really hard and real questions from her past and her present. After
we filled it out we went to the movie. Mind you I haven’t seen her cry…at least
not like this. From beginning to end her face was full of tears and so were
mine. We went back to my place after the movie, got to talk and pray together
and went to bed. The next day we decided to call the teen challenge center to ask
a few questions. The lady who picked up the phone was very kind, and she
sounded so happy. She was actually one of the girls still in the program
herself. She was telling us all about teen challenge and even though there are
definitely some tough things about it, it was worth it. We even got to talk to
the pastor and head of teen challenge and he informed us there was an open bed
and to get her application over as soon as possible. There is a good chance my
friend could get into this program, and there is also a good chance she may
not…but whatever happens I must trust God, and leave my friend in Gods hands.
Please be praying for this friend of mine and be praying for me as well because
I know that as much as I prepare myself for it, I will be sad if she doesn’t get
to go. I just…I just see this as the tool God could use to break her physical,
emotional, and spiritual bondage and pain and I really do care about her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjyi_dMhyIs
(this is the URL to watch the movie trailer for Gimme Shelter)
