god meets girl: hope hurts

god meets girl

28.11.05

hope hurts

sometimes i get handed a gift.
i don't always see it as a gift.
it is something so overwhelming that
i fear the effort it will take to unpack it.
so i leave my gift.

last week i turned 28. in los angeles.
for the first time in many years i spent what was my day, giving to others. but the weekend turned into so much more. i have no idea how it will all turn out. and that's ok.

i have been volunteering with young life to share Life with kids. these kids are tough, not your typical urban yl kids. every stereotype you can think of applies to them. these 5 blocks which share a curb with one of the most power forces in the world today - a television studio - breed a sickening lack of hope. what exactly is the opposite of hope? i don't think despair even covers it. but what do you do if your mom is a drug addict, you have 3 younger siblings to care for, and you're only 15? a compounding durge of hope.

so thus beings my birthday - a friday spend driving a 12-passenger van filled with antsy teenagers. and i mean filled - we took 30 kids, by far the biggest group at camp. the 3 hour trip took 5 hours. when we did finally arrive, minutes before club, our guys were jumped. arrival at yl camp is usually filled with cheers from other kids and leaders. ours was fighting.

camp ended at 9:17 pm on saturday after getting no sleep, keeping a few more fights at bay, confiscating weed, and so much more that i can barely comprehend it. and i was right there while they did it all in front of me. is this what Christ feels? does He watch us do what we shouldn't, all the while thinking we've deceived Him? is there an example of a time when Jesus was taken advantage of? doesn't He just wait for us and say, "yeah, i know about it. i Love you anyway"? amazing.

so that is how i spent my birthday. i missed seeing friends. i missed getting birthday cards and phone calls. i was seeing Christ work. but it still hurt. and the kids came back.

is that hope taking form?

posted by Paige @ 10:45 PM

1 Comments:

At 5:22 AM, Anonymous said…

great news. glad you spent your birthday in such a great, revealing way... by the way, happy birthday...!