Please Pray

Today is Thursday which means that yesterday I went into detention.

**Deep breath/sigh before I start this**

Last night one of the girls, J (for the sake of this being online and out there for all the weird people - and you - to see I'll call her J), was sitting in the corner all by herself crying. So I went over there to talk to her and see if she was okay. I was expecting the usual, "My mom said she'd visit and she didn't." What I got was the absolute last thing I expected, "I found out today that my mom has a brain tumor. They're doing surgery today but the Doctors don't know if it will do any good. My mom doesn't know how long she has to live."

In tears, she told me about her 9 yr old brother who still lives at home. How all she wanted to do was be at home with her mom (yet her mom didn't want to have her home because of the stress it would cause). She told me how she wished she didn't do what she did. She told me how her mom didn't want letters from her. I sensed hopeless, helplessness, a desire to do far more than she'd ever be able to beyond the locked doors. And then the glimmer of hope: J did believe in God.

We prayed at the end of the conversation and I asked her if it would be okay to tell all the people I knew about her mom so they could pray. So please pray.

K, another girl, looked at me at one point and said, "Can I talk to you?" So me and her and another girl (B from the "Preacher Lady" blog...and K is the same K - the two best friends) and eventually all the girls in that unit (including J), sat around K and saw her tears too. She wailed...I imagine just like the Bible says Jesus wept in Luke 11, all the way from the bottom of her toes.

In the middle of her tears, I found out that she learned that she was adopted just before her birth mom died and she was unable to meet her. Her birth-grandmother also passed away before she had a chance to meet her and she just kept saying over and over, "I just want to be with my mom! I just want to know my mom! I just want to be with my mom!..." K didn't feel anyone loved her. The plan for her is that she's going to stay with an uncle (or some relative) in Detroit after her stint in detention. I sensed a great lack of feeling loved, emptiness, hopelessness, and despair.

Just the pain that K was in last night resonated in my soul. And the deep longing for J to be there for her mom pierced my heart. What is this world? Where do these girls, perhaps the least in our society - not just the Grand Rapids Community but in communities around the nation and world - find hope? ...Love?...A sense of being wanted and needed? ...How are they filled? ..Where do they fill their despair? ...Have we, as Christians, made any headway in this world?

There are a million questions I could ask that begin with 'Why...?' The one I choose to ask is 'What...' What can I do Lord, to ease the pain in this world?