November 2011 Newsletter

Download a PDF to read the full newsletter. Or read our featured article below.

---

 

When the Walls Came Down

When Andrea was 7-years-old, she celebrated her first communion. It’s a tradition in some denominations for children of that age to learn the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, then be able to participate in it. She had a beautiful white dress to walk down the aisle to the altar. Andrea remembers pretending that she was marrying Jesus. But that innocent purity was corrupted by parental abuse, both verbal and physical. Walls went up. When she was 12, she went around a wedding reception drinking all the champagne she could. There her was no peer pressure; it was just rebellion. She wanted attention that was missing. Walls got higher. High school was her first public school. She was unknown, unpopular, vulnerable. She fell into a group that used drugs. She was expelled from school. Walls were then a fortress from emotional pain and from the Truth. She thought God was mean and punishing her.

For many years to follow, Andrea looked for security, fitting in, love. She went to all the wrong places, wrong crowd. She worked; she got fired for missing work because of hangovers. One day, she had no place to go. She was tired of drinking, tired of being sick and tired. She said she knew that she needed structure and bound- aries. Andrea said,” I had never been to a shelter. My first day, I thought, this is nice, nothing like I expected. It was warm and secure. And no one here was going to condemn me. This place taught me how to open up.”

Andrea now has a job and has moved out of the Mission. When she came back for this interview, she said, “I miss it here, I dream about this place. I came in today and sighed. I feel at home here. I was willing to change, to let go and let God. It was God’s will for me to be here. My new start was here. I opened my heart and stopped blaming myself and others. I reaffirmed my belief in God and entered back into life. God let me know that He is there.”

Andrea calls them “God shots”, those “coincidences” that get our attention. Its conviction of the presence of the Holy Spirit and our guilt. Its acknowledgement of God and repentance. When the walls came down, there was the Lord, Who had never left her, and there was that little girl that still loves Jesus.