I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It’s too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I can’t just fight when I think I’ll win
that’s the end of all belief
and nothing has provoked it more
than a possible defeat

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It’s too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

We walk a while we sit and rest
we lay it on the altar
I won’t pretend to know what’s next
but what I have I’ve offered

I pray for a vision
and a way I cannot see
It’s too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I pray for inspiration
and a way I cannot see
It’s too heavy to carry
and I will never leave

(”The Long Defeat”, Sara Groves)

—–

Last December, Ben and I sat in the balcony of the Ryman Auditorium, and heard Sara Groves sing “The Long Defeat”. I’ve long found her voice hauntingly and simply beautiful, but this song was spectacular enough to draw tears from me. It still does, but for different reasons.

Groves explained that she wrote the song following her reading of Mountains Beyond Mountains, the story of Dr Paul Farmer, who worked among the poor in Haiti, and still works in international health and social justice.

In late February, I took my job at Outreach, Inc. I’ve never suffered under the notion that the position would be easy, or that it wouldn’t break my heart. We walk alongside youth ages 14-24 who are “homeless or at-risk”. It’s a broad category that includes poverty, generational sin, drugs, lack of education, poor choices, lack of hope, rebellion, prostitution, pregnancy, abuse, neglect, welfare, food stamps, and suffering. Mostly, my job includes the simple walking: lunches, talks over coffee, discussions about their choices, telling kids they can be more than what they are, that they were created for more than this, that they are loved beyond imagination despite whatever they may do to themselves or others, no matter what has been done to them. Any given day, I have shared discussions with my clients over books on apologetics, made up formula for girls’ babies, taken girls to their daughters’ t-ball practice, driven girls to pick up job applications, pled with girls to not do what they are about to do, driven girls to detox, driven kids to the free health clinic, celebrated a new job or the birth of their child, marveled at the fact that sometimes they appear to actually be listening to me. We climb to the 4th floor of warehouses long abandoned by anyone except the homeless, we decend below bridges that the general population would never imagine are inhabited by small communities of “The Invisibles”.

Specifically, I waited over a year to be able to work at Outreach. But really, I waited 26 years. I’ve never had a job I love, even when most days feel like one step forward and three steps back. I’m pretty good at detatching myself when I go home (I do not believe I can be as effective in my job if I cannot ever set it aside to renew my spirit), but it would also be irresponsible in a sense, to separate my life wholly from my work. This stuff impacts each area of your life, simply due to the fact that Love impacts each area of your life. Sometimes love means letting someone do what they will do. Sometimes it means throwing yourself in front of the train. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

I am busy building things these days. Each day, both in my work and in my personal life, I am being asked - called - to build relationships. I have, for quite sometime, failed to see the serious work of “building relationships”. Too often, we see building relationships as taking what comes most easily to us (hanging out with friends), rather than forming bricks, waiting for them to harden in the sun, carrying those bricks on our backs (however long that road may be) in order to build something new, in a place we may not prefer to go. I cannot read the Bible without seeing this picture of calling on all of His children. It’s much, much harder than we would like for it to be. It took Jesus to the cross. I’m not sure why we assume it would not bring our own drops of blood and sweat.

The blood, sweat and tears would be much easier if we could see the pinnacle, if we were assured victory with each of our relationships. But this is never guaranteed.

We spend a lifetime building a marriage that eventually crumbles under the weight of another persons choice.

We raise our children with love and kindness, only to see them spit in our faces.

We spend years walking alongside a friend or relative with an addiction, watch our hopes and their hopes raise with the hope of freedom, only to watch it crash with a devestating blow.

And so, we stare at the bricks on the ground, at what is left of time, energy and emotion invested, that has all fallen. And we walk straight back there and pick up the first brick again.

Because we were never meant to build the wall with our own tools and materials. We came with neither. And we may never get the wall done. We may never get further than a few bricks before other person decides to take their bricks and run. There is no way of knowing now.

But I can’t just fight when I think I’ll win. It’s the end of all belief.

The belief lies in knowing that ultimately, the fight will be won, whether I believe it or not, whether I can see it now or not.

The day is coming…when everything sad will come untrue.

He is teaching me to love.

It’s impossible to leave.

(Ben took the ones of me. He was tired of me taking photos of him.)

Yesterday, this problem found it’s salve.

Bummer.

In case you think I’m a heathen (which I am, really), we have church on Saturday nights. So I wasn’t just sleeping through church. (Though you could make a case that most churches don’t start that early anyway.) Also, we ended up playing cards after church last night til 2am, so that’s a solid 8 hours.

I could have slept another hour, but I looked outside and it was SUNNY. It looked so inviting. I keep smelling spring on the horizon. So I decided to get up, and have a lazy morning, giving me some extra time til Ben comes to pick me up for our plans today. (Sunday plans: Arrested Development marathon with friends, followed by an Andrew Peterson show.)

But here’s the kicker. By the time I showered and got outside…IT WAS CLOUDY. And consistently cloudy, not just like the sun took a break. That just not okay.

I went outside to read anyway (still Chuck Klosterman’s “IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas”), even though it was a little cold.

At some point, in the middle of an article Klosterman wrote about goths at Disneyland (no, really), a squirrel ran up a tree in my across-the-street-neighbor’s yard (the one with all the random crap on the porch)  puffs up his tail, and sings. Well, I’m imagining it was something like singing, expect in squirrel. Kinda like Bjork. In any case, I’m assuming he was looking for a lady friend. If I spoke squirrel, I’m sure I would have heard something like: “Hey there laaaaadies. It’s spring and I’m ready for some sweet lovin. I hope you don’t mind that I wear dresses in the shape of swans.”*

It reminded me of a similar thing that happened spring of last year. It was a bit warmer, but I was reading on my porch (in my last house). I watched two squirrels chase each other for a good five minutes across the road. Up and down trees, back and forth. It wasn’t unlike any other relationship, really.

And so, sun or not, I guess squirrels in heat means spring is on the way. It’s about freaking time.

M

*This is, of course, a reference to the infamous “swan dress” that Bjork wore to the 2001 Oscars. It was ridiculous, but no where near the most ridiculous thing she’s ever worn in public - it’s simply the most famous ridiculous thing she’s ever worn in public.

Enjoy.

Monday, Feb 10th.

The Friday before, my boss (Director of Youth Services) called a last-minute prayer meeting for Monday. I had assumed this had to do with our recent staffing struggles, as both our activities director and teen boys’ field worker had resigned, and both myself and another coworker had been off sick. I was mistaken. At the prayer meeting, we were giving scattered, vague information that our jobs were all in danger. (I should note that the vagueness wasn’t due to my boss not wanting to share information, but had to do with the fact he was not given adequate information.) We learned that a staff meeting had happened on Saturday which would determine the fate of the community center. Our boss had not yet heard the outcome of the board meeting, despite making phone calls to attempt to gather that information.

That previous week, I had also been contacted by the director of Outreach, Inc, asking for a formal interview between myself and their leadership team about the possibility of joining their staff as a case manager. Outreach, Inc. is an organization dedicated to serving homeless and at-risk youth in Indianapolis through their drop-in center, street outreach, relational guidance, job/education assistance, and case management.

Given the fact that the position offered almost double what I was getting paid at Wheeler (I was having to juggle the additional jobs as part-time nanny and picking up shifts at Starbucks in order to make ends meet), and full benefits (which I hadn’t had in a year, since working full-time at Starbucks), and because Outreach has an amazing reputation, and is more closely aligned with what I believed God was calling me to do, we arranged for the interview on the morning of Feb 14th.

Tuesday, Feb 11th.

From my understanding, my boss at Wheeler attempted to make more phone calls to leadership at Wheeler, and his calls were not being answered. We still did not know the state of our jobs or the community center and it’s ministries.

Thursday, Feb 14th.

9am: I meet with the leadership team of Outreach, Inc over coffee for a formal interview. The interview (as far as I could tell at the time!) goes well.

3pm: I get a call from our administrative assistant at Wheeler, who leaves a message that a meeting is being held for all staff at 4:30 and that “I’ll probably want to be there”.

4:30pm: All the youth, family and hispanic ministries staff gather at the community center, to find the four top directors of Wheeler waiting for us…and we know what’s coming. We are informed that the community center will be closing, and all the ministries at the center will be ceasing. End-of-the-year giving was short by approximately 300k, and cuts had to be made. They decide to cut all “non-residential” programs, in order to focus on residential homeless and addictions recovery programs. At this point, none of us were surprised by this. What did surprise us is that they were giving us two weeks: til February 29th. Two weeks to end club and say goodbye to our kids. Two weeks.

Friday, Feb 15th.

I get a call from Megan at Outreach, asking me to come to an all-staff interview and meeting on Wednesday.

Wednesday, Feb 20th.

12:30. I attend an all-staff meeting at Outreach, Inc, in which I’m grilled by those in attendance. After a 20-minute break, I’m officially offered a job as Case Manager at Outreach, Inc. I start training Feb 25th. (For those reading closely, you’ll note I actually have a week of overlap pay and work this coming week, our last week of clubs. This is an additional blessing!)

And so that’s that. I was laid-off and hired in my new position within five days. There are so many other details that make this much more miraculous than it even seems here (ex: I nanny for a little girl…and when her mother was having her new baby, she was not going to go back to work, and would no longer need me. This was going to be a bigger cut to my finances. She’s due on Feb 25th. So as of next week, I would have also been out of my nanny job as well.). Not only can I now make ends meet with only one job….it’s coming through a job that I genuinely feel that I was made for.

That said, please note that there are hundreds of kids who will no longer have a “safe place” to go to at the community center on the east side of Indianapolis. Many of my coworkers (eight apart from myself) were laid off with no severance or options to take other jobs within the organization. Several other coworkers were offered jobs elsewhere…but now have to struggle with that decision, given that most of them do not feel called to homeless adults ministry, but rather, urban youth ministry. These are friends and children I dearly love, and they would welcome your prayers.

But for me….after a year of financial struggles, and mounting bills (mostly due to my car accident last year, when I had no health insurance), I can finally feel like a fully-functioning, self-supporting, 26-yr-old with a college degree that evidently wasn’t all for naught.

I am blessed with community, blessed with a calling, blessed with a burden.

(So, you don’t have to feel badly about your comment - or lack of - last week, Cameron. :))

***If you are so inclined, you are welcome to find out more about Outreach in the following videos:

 Outreach Inc. - Mad World

Outreach, Inc. - Have a Little Faith 

But considering I paid ten bucks to hear David Bazan, and not Random Loner Guy, you owe me five bucks. Because I half-heard you, and half-heard Bazan.

Toodles,

Michaela