I have been wanting to write a blog for a while now- but I haven’t had the motivation or the patience to sit and type it up. I’m a bee in a glass jar, remember?
But as of last night, I think I have something to share.
2 high school girls ran away Wednesday evening, two girls that I had just seen at the high school youth group that very same night.
I understand running away- I know the feeling. When I was 11 or 12, I used to pack up my blue drawstring bag, stuff an unbelievable amount of strawberry fruit snacks and cosmic brownies for my future meals on the road, a flash light, and a sweatshirt just in case, and then I’d start to create a plan of how to unlatch my window’s screen without anyone hearing me.
But back then I only thought of running away because it seemed so cool. The thought only crossed my mind because my parents wouldn’t let me stay over at my friend Gracie’s house that weekend. Yes I “packed” my bags and created a plan, but one thing always stopped me: my mom and dad. Thinking of my parents and how much they loved me stopped me dead in my tracks.
My heart aches for the parents of those two girls- because over the last few years, and now the last 2 months living with my friend and her daughter, I have come to realize how much you can truly love a person. I have seen first hand the love parents have for their children- whether that be from my family or my friends and their kids. I have felt, even if they weren’t my own, how incredibly important and beautiful each child and person I have come in contact with is to me or someone else in their life.
Someone cares for those girls. Their moms, their dads, their siblings, and their high school leaders. Someone cares.
I care, and I never even knew their names until last night. And the someone who made them, who created them with a purpose and a love so deep that nothing could ever separate them from Him cares for them too.
So I guess all I want to share today is that life is too short to believe the lie that no one cares for you. Life is too short to let broken families, messes and screw ups, pasts and failures, a hidden struggle or a breaking heart keep you from believing that you are worth the fight, worth the love, worth the work.
Satan is having a hay-day if you believe those lies. If you believe that your brokenness is too much or that your list of ‘sins’ is too long to be loved, then you are falling for a trap that is just that- a trap meant to keep you from something greater and better- something you are freely given and something you will always deserve- love.
Love is something we all have, something we all feel. But we don’t share it enough. We don’t tell people enough. We don’t believe it enough.
I have seen relationships fall apart because the lie of worthlessness and brokenness overwhelmed a person to where they couldn’t receive the love they were given. I have seen families break apart because people are afraid to open up and to be loved.
We all are a mess. Every single one of us. But we are a mess with a purpose. We are a mess with a Love who conquers all our brokenness. So we have to seek that purpose. We have to seek that love, that help, that clean slate or we will never get to where He intended us to be.
You may believe in God and in His son, but there are things in your life that are too deep to even speak of. There are weeds that have made their roots and you are too afraid to pull them up. There are struggles you are too ashamed to unravel.
But the thing is, if we aren’t open to receiving someone’s love or help, we aren’t fully open to receiving Him.
“Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly in a clean one.”- C.S. Lewis.
Your Heavenly Father wants to reveal Himself to you- but you are letting your brokenness blind you from that pursuit. You r friends, your family, your church family- we are all here for you- they are all there for you, but you are letting those lies trap you into thinking that you will never be enough.
We can’t reflect Him, we can’t receive ALL of Him if we can’t let Him all the way in.
We can’t receive our parents’ love or our friends’ or high school leaders’ love if we don’t let them in.
Stop believing those lies that you are not worth it. Stop believing that running away is better than facing your brokenness dead on.
And please stop thinking that it is better for you to leave than to stay.
Because someone loves you. Someone cares for you.
He cares for you.
You just have to let us in.
See ya soon,
Stephanie Lynn
gwenn | lynn 