Just listening...

She's twelve and dressed from school in her ratty comfortable clothes and her mother's borrowed high heel shoes. She's explaining to me what teacher's and classes she has this year that she likes and hates. She fills me in on what bullies are back this year & how there was only 5 minutes left to eat after she got through the lunch line.

I only ask an open ended question very rarely because she's become comfortable with what we call our "dump" sessions. Where it's safe to laugh, cry, be mad, or have a ton of questions about things she doesn't want to share with Mom & Dad.

There is always something deeply reveling as I just stay still and listen. "We have to pick two objects to take to our science class that describe us," she says. "I picked a really tiny gun for the violence in my life. I don't have one for sorrow yet. I wish I could just print a sad face off the internet, but mom will be on the computer."

The tragedy is that this isn't a street kid on Colfax. She lives in South Aurora, among the expensive homes & the Cherry Creek School District. Violence in children's lives does not except physical boarders or economic boundaries. I meet at-risk kids everywhere.

Enough to make a tough nut cry...

I don't choose to live a difficult life, that would be stupid.

I don't choose to struggle with finances, worry about things I can't control, the abuses I see every day in ministry to the marginalized. I don't ever want to be a disappointment to my husband, step-kids, parents, family, friends, but I do fail sometimes.

Yet, when I am following the will of God and should I then suffer, that's something else entirely.

It felt like the gentle, convicting, energizing voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through a friend of mine when he said, "ever notice how He can find few who will go into the really hard places? Hard working conditions, hard marriages, hard churches?" Though we were talking generally, it hit me and rang true deep into my heart & mind.

At first it was affirming, urban ministry can be hard. Then it is convicting, marriage can be hard, staying close to my family that doesn't like me, disagreements of ideology, tasks, or even solutions with Christian co-workers. Finally, it evokes in me a deep desire to stay right where God wants me, hard or not, because Christ didn't count the cost it took to find me and save me from my sin and myself.

I tease with a girlfriend a few days later, "I'm a Christian because it's the only religion that would have me after the life I lived." We laughed a little, and inside my soul, I shared a smile with Jesus because the aches & pains turn sweet with time, because of the miles we've walked and the tears we've shared over the years.

My Name is not Those People

I am overwhelmed

I somehow thought this would be easy. With my old passion for writing, my strong opinions, and my desire to communicate...

I have too many excuses and not enough practice. And yet I do. I've written articles for years and shared my passion for ministry with people, in person, for years...

I guess I haven't exposed my own personal thoughts, every day thoughts to any one really, for a very long time...

So pardon the fits and starts. I will be taking up this challenge again! =]

• A death,
• Easter,
• attempt to join bible study deferred,
• spiritual attack on my youngest
• Goggle Apps & iGoogle merging mess that lingered
• stomach flu
• 1 continuation, 2 graduations
• made mother-in-law sick, so felt worse
• personal blog saved
• accountable for shutting down instead of reaching out...

I'm a sinner in need of a lot of grace,
which by it's very definition is undeserved...
Taking a deep breath, and moving forward.

Contritely yours,
Ms V

Automatic Breaking System

I got word just a few days ago; one of my prodigal family had died at age 23.  I hadn’t seen him in a few months, walking around Colfax or Peoria or 11th, and I always do.  He always had a smile and a wave when he recognized my car.  We always took the time to talk when we happened to see each other at the grocery store, or wherever.

Dustin was a light hearted soul, stuck in a world of harsh consequences.  He wanted to be liked so much, that lies and boastfulness became some of his standard tools.

I was just getting to know Dustin, years ago, when I finally got to meet the real young man behind the mask.  He was running toward the locked front door at Coffee House, when I saw him through the glass.  I rushed to meet him.  Unlocking the door, I saw the five kids running after him in the background.  Once inside, I witnessed them stop, talk, and finally walk away.  My eyes closed in thanks to God for turning them around, as my heart rate started to try and settle back down.

Dustin was a mess.  He wasn’t ducking his head in shame, though. He had thrown it back to try to stop his bleeding nose.  It had bled halfway down his shirt, as it was.  Taking stock now, bloody nose, bloody hands from a fall, skinned knees and bare feet.  As I moved to help him, he burst out, “don’t touch the blood, Ms V.”  I took a deep breath and starting praying again as I went to get the medical kit with gloves.

“They got my phone and my shoes,” he worried aloud, “my mom just got them.”  I tried to reassure, even as I was cleaning him up.  However, I didn’t know his mom at all, I couldn’t have said how she would react.  I started with asking about his mom, eventually offering to go in with him, when he talked with her.

This whole situation tore down the walls between Dustin and me.  He let me see the real person behind the defenses he’d built.  That afternoon made us family, and we talked and stayed in touch, even after he stopped coming to Coffee House.

I know relationships built living along Colfax can create some unusual families.  Chosen families that just as often have as many dysfunctions as blood related families do.  Relationships that God uses to shape me, just as much as anything I might say or do shapes others.

Life gets in a rush, here, just like everywhere else.  And in the rush sometimes, I hit a hidden patch of black ice and I lose all traction.  Only Christ gives me that ABS feeling of helping me come to a controlled stop to seek Him in the midst of chaos and loss.

To hear this last week that Dustin had died in January has put the breaks on my life for a time.  He is not the 1^st prodigal teen I have lost to death.  Each teen and each relationship is unique.  Losing Dustin has put me in my Heavenly Father’s arms, aching at this loss.  There are no words for this feeling.  I’m so glad Jesus doesn’t need them to hear my heart.

Who is Lighting the Way for Who?

I remember the days before I was nine.  Teacher's talking behind closed doors.  I overheard words like gypsies, transient.


I remember the look in someone's eyes when they were just "uncomfortable" with me.  Whether it was how I looked, smelled, talked, or gave them the eye, they were uncomfortable.  I was left to wonder why.  What about me makes you look at me like I'm something stuck to the bottom of your shoe?  What makes you whisper to someone next to you when I walk by?


Street teens have told me the stories of being told quietly, off to the side, by someone in the church that the teen is new to, that they need to: dress differently, look differently, speak differently.  Translation:  be someone else before you're welcome in God's House.  I've experienced it, in some form, have you?


I remember learning that Anger is a secondary emotion, it is caused by first or primary emotions like: shame, insecurity, disrespect, fear, etc. 


I remember sitting on a bed, hurt at what Christians could do, and my mother passing on the lesson that "they are God's beloved children, too," even when they're not seeing the whole picture of God's kingdom.

We're all broken, under construction, learning to draw closer to Christ.  We all can carry His light.  I feel a confidence when I introduce myself as "a sinner saved by grace."  I wish I did when I say I am a Christian...

a glimps of me...

“So, you have no practice at anything permanent.”

It was a statement.  She was 16 years old and I was coming up on 40.  This girl had just given me a revelation that would change how I view my own life, simply because she was right.

All we had been chatting about was how much we’d moved around when we were younger. Yes, we were also counting moving around from place to place in one city.  It was a lot, for both of us.  I was asking her how this affected her relationships with family & friends.  So, of course, being 16, she answered it, but then turned the question back on me.

I answered that I was very close to my family while we were moving around together, but it kinda fell apart once we weren’t in the same house.  I have two long time friends, because they’re stubborn enough to keep calling me every few months, and forgiving me about my long absences to the friendship.  My life was filled with acquaintances and my ministry family.  I admitted that it had more to do with my not thinking to call or keep up with people.

This has been a chief regret of my life.  I’m in love with the idea of family, but I suck at it.  Unless something happens, or they’re standing in front of me, or call me, I don’t think to keep in touch.  It doesn’t mean I don’t love them or don’t think about them and wonder what they might be doing, or even spinning yarns in my head of what they might be up to in the moments I’m thinking about them.  I say a little prayer, and I head into the next thing, and there is always a next thing, isn’t there…

If my parents hadn’t come to me in my late 20’s and asked, almost insisted that I find one evening a week to come to their house and visit, I don’t know what would have happened.  I’m lax in talking to my older brother, because he and his family live across the street from my parents.  I see him holidays, hear about him through my niece and my parents, so it seems like I’m close, even if I’m not.  I’m ashamed to say I’m not any better with my oldest brother who lives out of state.  I know I love him; I even admire him a lot, and think of him often.  I think to call and then tell myself to wait until the minutes are free after 7:30 pm, then my life pulls my attention away and I forget.  Too often, it’s the same with my friends.

All I could think about was all that moving.  Building the habits of making friends quick, so I had some, and forgetting them quick after a move so my heart wouldn’t ache over something I couldn’t do anything about.  In my young sinfully human way, building bad habits to “protect myself” and feeling it was okay.

So here we are.  I'm trying something new and praying God will help me develop into someone better than who I am.  A blog, an ongoing communication to my family, my friends, my champions, my church, my neighbors, and any new friends I make along the way.  I won’t always be talking about me, but I will have something to say.  Wanna join me?