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Scars. A reminder of where we’ve been. And a friend said they can remind us of where we don’t want to go again.
When I sat down with 21 year-old Crystal at Village Oaks to learn her story, I noticed a scar next to her left eye. I asked her about it. Let’s just say it is a reminder of somewhere she doesn’t want to go again.
Crystal’s story began in the home of her parents. At age 5 she went to live with her grandmother in Arlington. At 16, she was back with her father. He was “in his addiction” in her words. She ended up at Promise House and Our Friends Place—where she lived when she graduated from high school.
After hearing about the darkness and difficulty, I asked Crystal if ages 16-21 might be described as “one big scar.” “Yes it is!” Do you ever get tempted to go back? Her response, give or take a couple “no’s”: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” With hands waving and head shaking.
What was the bottom? Her response: “I don’t know a lot of 21-year-old people who could survive 5 months at an actual homeless shelter.”
“I had to swallow a lot of pride. I had nowhere else to go,” she said. “I saw things there that I had never seen before. It was a whole new world.”
She was giving me a timeline of events. August 23, 2010: first day at the shelter. February 7, 2011: got the key to her very own apartment at Village Oaks through the Gateway Program. March 7, 2011: Got a job at TGIF restaurant downtown.
You got a thing with dates? “I remember the good ones,” she said. “Those 3 dates were the starting of something new.” She remembers the good ones. The scar reminds her of where she doesn’t want to go again.
What about God?
“For a while I didn’t feel close to Him. But I knew He was there. When I started to get to rock bottom, I wanted Him to pick me up.”
Do you talk to Him?
“Yes. Same thing as me sitting here talking to you.”
She has dreams for the future. Wants 2 kids. Not sure about a husband. “I’ve been hurt so bad,” she says.
An hour after we stopped talking, Crystal came back into the office. I was talking to a couple of our police officers when she quietly handed me 3 sheets of paper and said, “I want you to read this.” It was something she had written while she was at the homeless shelter.
"...I am no longer a lost soul but a discovered precious jewel," she wrote.
In a different section she talked about the “house” of her old life: “But now I have called the demolition crew and knocked the house down. It’s now a clean glass house that you can see thru. When you look in the glass you can see the blessings of God and how he blessed me to be able to re-live again, covered with His blood.”
Jesus knew something about scars. “…by His wounds we are healed,” declares Isaiah. He knows something about Crystal’s scars, too. And mine. And yours.
Scars. By ours we can be reminded of where we’ve been and don’t want to go again. By His, we’re healed.
-- Dean Wilson
