Tears

Some times silent, other times loud and very messy, tears come in many ways for many reasons but they always express an emotion.

Over the years of doing ministry in at risk communities and running after school program for children I have experienced many moments of tears for many different reasons. 

Tears of pain and hurt, of laughter and joy, of frustration, of seething anger, and sometimes just because they don't know how else to express themselves. 

Tears are a gift, they are full of meaning and weight. My husband often says to me he wishes he could cry as it is not a very common for him. The day of our wedding he wanted to cry, to have his yes joy expressed through tears and again when I told him we were pregnant a moment he wished he could have cried. Tears are a gift, a way to express deep feeling whether full of joy or sorrow. Tears wash down our faces helping to relieve the extent of emotion being felt often leaving us tired or exhausted and it a strange way at times feeling better. 

But tears are also as the same time sometimes the only coping mechanism for expressing deep hurt, pain or anger. They can be an uncontrolled way our bodies respond to shock and deep heart wrenching hurt, pain or fear. 

In this season at camp I have lots of criers. Kids who are quick to tears as a result or reaction to almost anything. Their upset, they cry, they didn't catch the ball, they cry. They made some one else cry, they still cry.  It is in these moments that emotions are all being expressed in the exact same way, tears. A baby is born and cries to express anything and everything, crying is it's primary way of communicating, but as the child grows so should their ability to communicate to many different emotions and desires in many different ways. But sometimes they don't, sometimes there is so little stable, healthy examples of emotions being expressed in right or helpful ways that they don't learn and constantly resort to what is known to them, tears. 

A huge part of what we do at camp is helping kids to understand they have the ability to make choices. That no one else makes their choices for them, other people may effect they way they feel but they actually have the ability to choose how they react to those feelings and to empower them to make those decisions in knowledge that they are. This is tied so closely to emotions, we are humans, react and respond based on so many emotions in a day and kids do the same, often following the poor examples of those around them. In anger they hit, in fear they bully, in sadness they hid, in pain they cause pain. This task of helping kids to make good choices is tied very closely to helping them understand and identity their emotions before reacting to how they feel as well as teaching healthy alternatives to expressing such emotions. 

To linger

I drove up around 2 not really knowing how this would go. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving and I wanted to see some beauty so I invited her to go to the bluffs with me. She got in the car and we set off. I wasn’t sure how this would go, would we have things to talk about, would she enjoy just exploring with me? This could last a total of 10 mins or who knows maybe even an hour.

As we approached the store line we dipped our hands into the cool water. As the waves lapped up onto the beach I was reminded of what waves explain to me so well, grace! Constant, over and over again a steady stream, of grace. Do I share this? Hey T, I started do you know what waves remind me of? She looked up and waited for me to continue. I took my hand and make a mark in the sand quickly before the wave came and running over it returned it to its smooth surface. Grace, I said. That mark is like our sin but God’s grace comes and washes over it with power. She took her hand and slowly began to mark her own marks as if experimenting to see if in deed the wave would wash it away.

This 14 year old girl shared about school, about the boy who got stabbed and died the week before from her school. She talked about her grandparents and family and all the things she hasn’t done and wants to do. We sat on rocks and watched the waves discussing boats and the color of the water and lake Ontario, over an hour past as we sat and talked.

Noticing the high cliffs surrounding the beach she asked what was up there and so we drove up and around to the top of the bluffs we were admired the view. T stood in wonder soaking it in than she sat with her feet over the end and just breathed it all in. I settled down beside her as she made comments of the view and how she could look at it all day and the wind how good it felt. I was in wonder! Yes, I fully agree but for this 14 year old to embrace and love it? There was no wifi, no phone, no peers and here she sat fully soaking up the sun, the view, the wind and the beauty of God.

We headed back to the community to meet with other grade 9’s who were applying to be volunteers in the afterschool program. I thought it would be a quick process of handing out some forms but instead T and her friend lingered for a couple hours. Feeling nervous about filling in an application and not being very strong in writing we sat together, me explaining the form, they giving me the answers. Me writing their answers out on a paper, they rewriting what I wrote onto the form, 

Once this was finished they asked if I could give them a ride to McDonalds so off to McDonalds we went, we order our own food and sat in the kiddy play area talking about school and life. Once another hour had passed I drove them back home and headed home myself. Overwhelmed in joy of what had just happened.

It amazes me the way these youth desire to just be in someone presence. To linger and to be cared for in the simplest of ways and yet so often my heart is fearful of their moments not knowing how they will respond, not always knowing where they are at, yet what I am learning is rather than trying to figure it all out first just making myself available for these moments as they arise!

The darling of Heaven crucified

Worthy is the Lamb

Seated on the throne

I crown you now with many crowns

You reign victorious

High and lifted up

Jesus Son of God

The darling of heaven crucified

Worthy is the Lamb

This words hold such beautiful weight in my life. As I sit and ponder over these words the wave of emotions that wash over we are endless.

I am so undeserving

Why me

I don't understand it

All I know is His forgives and embrace 

and the peace that encompasses it all.

The victory is won, the struggle is real, but it's done and the reality is that I can rest in the finished work of another.

This is a truth that is not understand, it is to so many a piece of information that is comforting at times but doesn't hold the weight or the freedom that it is intended to, because it is not embraced. The endless thoughts of 

I am so underserving

Why me

I don't understand it

Are actually the very same reasons they are unable to surrender and accept it.

No, it doesn't make sense.

Yes, we are undeserving

that is why we simple have to accept it

and not try to fully comprehend it.

Oh but the struggle for control.

That very same struggle going all the way back to that moment in the garden

we want to to know, we want to be in control.

How hard we find it to simple surrender to the fact that we can't,

but God did.

This is the truth that I love so much and that I terrible want other's (my kids, my youth my street leaders) to really and truly give themselves up to. 

The struggle is deep rooted, it is taught and even fostered but nothing, nothing is to deeply rooted for the Son to overcome.

Double trouble

Lord, you know there out there, so many young boys who have no one to lead them. Father bring them to us, bring them to camp, help us to get to know them and to invite them!

This was my prayer last January in recognizing how few boys we had at camp and just how many I saw playing after school on the playground unsupervised. As I continued prayers such as these I handed out forms as I met new kids hoping that the forms would make it home to their parent and somehow back into my hands at camp.

Just before March break I received a phone call from the mother of three young boys I had recently talked with and she eagerly signed them up for camp. I was so excited not only did that bring three more boys into our program but it meant three less boys where running around the neighborhood on their own. 

Fast forward a few months when one of these boys asked me for a form for his friend. I sent him home with one. The next day the form returned to camp accompanied with not one but two boys. Twin 8 year olds.

Well talk about double trouble. Daily I ask them what their name is and then desperately try to remember what they are wearing unless I can spot the scar on the forehead of one to be able to tell them apart.

Now we have 5 more boys between the ages of 5-9 and they are a bundle of fun and a load of trouble.

At least 5 times a day I hear one of the twins stomping up the stairs yelling my name, as he rounds the corner to my office he unloads with a flurry of swear words, wrapped up in tight angry emotions at whatever the situation was this time. I love these moments, the moment when he is completely pouring out to me all his hurt pain, and anger. 

Than he stops and he looks at me, and I remind him of his actions, of the choices he is able to make, I remind him that I believe in him and I send him back into the situations. Sometimes this works, sometimes it means that he returns in the same state 2 mins later but he is here.

I walked these 5 boys home the other day as they live very close to each other. 

As I dropped them each home I was able to talk with their parents and to watch them interact with their sons. As I turned the leave the doors the boys all exited their homes and ran across the streets as their parents closed their doors. The boys joined other local boys from the neighborhood who handed out toy guns and they proceeded to run around pretending to shoot one another.

I tell this to hopefully help you understand me deep desire for them to come to camp, to have a place to be loved and guided to be played with and to be taught not only healthy play but healthy relationships and discipline of character, to know that they are able to make their own choices but also to know the consequences that come with good or bad choices.

Please pray for these boys as camp is something very different to them, we expect big things from them and believe in them where they normally have very little expected from them. Pray also for their parents that they would not be discouraged when they are suspended for a day here and there and want to pull them out of camp but rather that they would understand how good and helpful it is for them to learn to fail in a safe place to have to deal with a consequence to be received back in love and grace the next day!

Morning workout ministry

8:45 on a Wednesday morning is when I pull up to 52 Cataraqui Recreational Centre. A tiny square concrete building we do not own but are the only ones who make use of it. Wednesday mornings are when I meet a mom from the community to run our weekly 4.4 miles together.

Some mornings she shows up awake and really to conquer the world, other days she won’t even greet me and we begin pacing ourselves in silence. The thing about these times is that it is easy to stay quiet, I mean it isn’t the easiest thing to have a full out conversation while running. Yet it is also the greatest opportunity in my week to intentionally ask questions to the woman and to listen to what can sometimes be endless chatter as I run adding a few hmm and uh huh’s here and there.

Yesterday specifically I felt like I should ask more questions about her personally. She can spend a lot of time talking about her 13 year old son who I am very close with or any of the other neighborhood kids as she is the go to fun adult on the block.

As I started asking significant questions here and there she responded well and was eager to share her struggles, fears and even discussion what causes the fear or what would make her less afraid in situations. As we talked Jesus came up often and she began speaking of how she has had  a new desire to learn more about God because her son has been asking a lot of questions at camp and is coming home full of questions that she is unable to answer but know is also questioning herself. We discussed these questions, along with topics of the distortion of love, good and bad in this world, who made God, where did the bible come from and the questions went on and on.

As our time slowly ticks down and we push each other to the end we finished exhausted and refreshed. 

Childlike

The wonder of a child is a unique thing. The way they are able to be innocent and unaware of so many things and yet have an outstanding embrace on joy.

Friday evening after dinner was finished at camp we headed to the park of the kids with nothing particular planned. As the rest of the evening unfolded I watched as their worlds of imagination became alive.

The older boys ran in circles across the entire playground engrossed in their game of tag, unashamedly unaware of all the social expectations on a 14 year old boy.

The younger kids ran repeatedly from one wood chip pile to the next crying out of the enemy approaching with their arms waving tennis rackets in the air as they full engaged in characters such as batman, girl hero, super girl and superman ect.

Two others boys at fully forgotten the need to keep their cloths clean as they buried each other’s arms deep underneath their stand castle and with such glee counted down and pulled their arms up and out sending stand flying every direction. 

I love these moments, the moments when these kids are truly kids, when the normal responsibilities that have caught up with them far too early in their lives just disappear for a little while. When they are surrendered to the freedom of their own imagination and anything is possible. I love that camp can be a place where they are forget the pressure of their homes, when they have a break from the things that way heavy on their childhood and allow them to just be who they are, to  laugh in the setting sun and to play until they are exhausted.

Absorbing from a distance

I am sitting in the office with a tea in hand, down the hall way I hear the loud banging and chatting of kids. Each in their group, the littlest group discussing what they remember from the bible study on Tues, the oldest group watching a video of Francis Chan talking about eternity as they begin their bible study. The loudest group is up to their regular jumping and banging around upstairs, they are the  7+8’s, although they constantly debate the name as some of them are 9 or almost 7, so I have told them to come up with their own new name, they have yet to decide upon one. The 9 and 10 boys are downstairs and their leader is teaching them about talking with Jesus and they are quietly writing out their own personal prayers.

It’s in these distant moments as I listen from down the hall that I have space to think, to pray. Today we are fully enforced with leaders, leaders who genuinely care for the kids, who come early to help with pickups, who come even though I don’t have any more hours left to pay them, they come just to be here, to be present.

This is the beauty of what I get to see every day. The beauty of the little one’s spilling in through the door and racing down the hallway, hands in the air, racing to be the first to meet me with a hug, their mouths all at ones shouting out story’s from their day, or calling me to notice their new haircut to the bracelet around their wrist.

The moments I catch from a distance, of their eyes peering up at a 16 year old looking for help, wisdom, leadership, and love and watching that 16 year old give back to them whatever they have to give.

Just the other day I was reminded of one of these moments as I sat in the office talking with one of my 16 year old leaders who had taken a couple months away from camp due to conflicts with co-workers matched with being overwhelmed in her personal life. Today she was back to talk about coming back to work as a leader. As we discussed the things she had learned in the process and what she was hoping for the future and why she wanted to be a leader I ceased the moment. This young lady dislikes her community and wants to so badly be able to leave it forever. She has seen and experienced so much pain and wants to run away and start fresh.

I told her that my hope for her is that she learns to love her community, to embrace the brokenness, to hold it close and to love the place and to love the people. Instead of leaving, I want her to stay! Because in staying she has a say into the future lives of those who live there and what this community will become. 

That it is beauty of who Streetleaders! The ones who want better for the kids and youth so much that they pour themselves out to make this happen! They share who they are, they give of their time, personality, talents, and gifts to creative a community of love, family and of hope.