Virtue*: A Wrecked Life, Part 2

A Wrecked Life, Part 2

by Virtue for Women on Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 8:55am

The phrase “scraping the bottom of the barrel” is not a pretty image. It connotes a certain pine-scented debasement, wouldn’t you say? Well, do you know what happens when you continue to dig and dig, push and push, and proceed on in spite of your own filth and despair? You punch right through the wooden bottom of that barrel and hit cold stone floor, with nothing but shame and splinters to show for it. And that’s where I found myself: broken, jobless, and exhausted from fighting God with everything I had. One particular night I remember being so angry, and not so much praying as much as shouting at God and asking Him why? Loud and clear was I told to “Go to church,” and shortly thereafter I found myself sitting in a Sunday morning service, agreeing to volunteer as a tutor and mentor at a youth center in Dorchester, a particularly dangerous neighborhood on the outskirts of town. I don’t know what possessed me to do it. Who was I kidding, trying to be a mentor? I mean, what wisdom was I, a former makeup artist and attempted fashionista, going to impart to inner-city youth? The correct placement of eye liner? Tales of the perfect shoe? I was the last person who would have found herself giving selflessly of her time, however freed up it was at the moment, so it still baffles me to think that I woke up early every Saturday morning and spent an hour on public transportation to hang out in the most unglamorous of neighborhoods, just for the chance to become a battle referee, a jump rope wrangler, and a hug dispenser.

And it completely changed my life.

A new friend and fellow mentor at the Quincy Street Youth Center told me one Saturday morning that she had been praying and felt that she was supposed to ask me to join her mission team to Haiti that summer. There was a small group headed to the impoverished country that July to run a Vacation Bible School for the kids living in a rural, mountainous village. Upon hearing her impressive selling points, I initially raised several objections, most poignantly that I could not go to Haiti because I was entirely too busy concentrating on the current downfall of my previously charmed life, and would therefore be a poor candidate for such a goodwill endeavor. Plus, she mentioned that food supplies would be meager, and snacks were about all I had left of my life’s impressive downward spiral. Where was I going get this traveling money, being jobless and all? What she described sounded way too … sacrificial. Leah listened patiently to all my reasons and passionate “no’s”, looked me straight in the face, and said plainly, “The Lord told me you are to come with us.”

How does one argue with that?

I was still doubtful that God was calling me to spend a month in the poorest nation in the western hemisphere when I wrote a letter asking for support, sure that the necessary funds would not come. With the help of so many generous donations from back home in California, from so many prayerful and gracious supporters, I raised not only the needed amount for my trip, but enough that we were able to buy extra school supplies for the kids, and in record time. I indeed went on that month-long trip to Haiti in the summer of 2008, and got so much more than I ever bargained for: a life completely torn apart and wrecked beyond all recognition.

“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” —Matthew 10:39

« Read “A Wrecked Life, Part 1″