One of my favorite writers, Jamie Tworkowski, said the following things in the mission/vision statement for the organization he founded. They have become the foundation for how I live my life.
You were created to love and be loved. You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you're part of a bigger story. You need to know that your life matters.
We live in a difficult world, a broken world. My friend Byron is very smart - he says that life is hard for most people most of the time. We believe that everyone can relate to pain, that all of us live with questions, and all of us get stuck in moments. You need to know that you're not alone in the places you feel stuck.
We all wake to the human condition. We wake to mystery and beauty but also to tragedy and loss. Millions of people live with problems of pain. Millions of homes are filled with questions – moments and seasons and cycles that come as thieves and aim to stay. We know that pain is very real. It is our privilege to suggest that hope is real, and that help is real.
You need to know that rescue is possible, that freedom is possible, that God is still in the business of redemption. We're seeing it happen. We're seeing lives change as people get the help they need. People sitting across from a counselor for the first time. People stepping into treatment. In desperate moments, people calling a suicide hotline. We know that the first step to recovery is the hardest to take. We want to say here that it's worth it, that your life is worth fighting for, that it's possible to change.
Beyond treatment, we believe that community is essential, that people need other people, that we were never meant to do life alone.
The vision is better endings. The vision is the restoration of broken families and broken relationships. The vision is people finding life, finding freedom, finding love. The vision is graduation, a Super Bowl, a wedding, a child, a sunrise. The vision is people becoming incredible parents, people breaking cycles, making change.
You might be thinking that I have to be pretty messed up to have this as the foundation of my life, but think about it. What are things that are being valued here? Love, healing, community, humility, redemption, forgiveness, the list goes on and on...
I believe the part about how everyone struggles and everyone has problems. And ya, sometimes it's the small-scale sitcom like problems you see on that after school special we all wish our lives were a little more like. But sometimes they are deep, painful problems that affect us in ways we will not fully understand all at once. I know I have experienced both. I think what I have learned this year is to know the difference between the two.
Have you ever heard the serenity prayer?
God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
I think we can sit around and argue about how this little diddy is only useful in certain environments, but this simple wisdom of knowing the difference between the things I can and cannot control makes life just a little less overwhelming, a little less daunting, a little less scary. I think that when I surrender the need to control things that I never had control of in the first place, I stop pushing people away and I am able to allow that love, healing, forgiveness, redemption, etc. to take place.
For the longest time I felt stuck in this broken place because I thought I had no control over my life, but then I realized that if I took smaller steps and broke down my expectations of myself to a reasonable level, I have a lot more control than I ever thought. And the things I can't control are a lot easier to let go. This doesn't mean I lower my expectations because I can't achieve my dreams either. It means I just take more steps or smaller steps to get where I want to be. It means I take more chances, learn more, and experience more along the way. I have learned that living this way lets me love more, laugh more, and at times it will hurt more, but in the long run it's well worth it.
If you would like to know more about that organization I was talking about, check out www.twloha.com. This organization changed and saved my life. A broken, scared, lonely sophomore girl about six years ago found this video on MySpace about a girl named Renee and these people (one of them being Jamie Tworkowski) who were helping her. A few minutes later, she was weeping because she realized there was someone out there who cared about what she was going through and there were people out there who are going through the same thing. Six years later that girl is engaged, a senior in college, planning on changing the world with her story (because some guy named Jamie told her that her story mattered) and this little MySpace born organization has helped thousands of people just like her.
"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
No comments:
Post a Comment