Hurting for the Hurt

A lot has happened this week. We had the beginning of the Thrive course, youth club, mentoring, as well as an afternoon hangout time with some of the girls in Tremorfa.

At mentoring, it has been getting easier now that we’ve gotten to know the kids better. Now we can start to plan the sessions more around the individuals rather than as a group. I had each of them write a list of 5 goals they would like to achieve either in their lifetime or in the next year. I explained again what I was there to do as a mentor: to help them set goals and help them achieve goals. One girl sat up straight when I said this, like she just now got what we were there for. She then got really excited and quickly picked up her pen and started writing her goals.

I then went down the list and asked about each one, “What would it take to accomplish this goal?”  She wrote that she wanted to get more confident at gymnastics and when I asked her the question she responded, “I guess stretching and conditioning?”

This was one thing I feel I can actually lend my expertise in since I have such a history with dance. So we ended up sitting on the floor demonstrating different exercises we can do to condition our muscles. It was great because she really clicked with this and she realized I can practically help her with something she wants to do. She was excited to come in again next week and work on that some more! It’s so encouraging to be able to help this girl with something she wants to do because I’ve been through the stretching and conditioning with dance.

Later that day, some of us with who work at the youth club in Tremorfa invited some of our girls to come over for hot chocolate and girl talk. We wanted to talk to them about how valuable they are and how they don’t need to give their bodies away to receive love. Some of the girls have put themselves in very vulnerable positions in looking for a boyfriend, and we wanted to tell them off a little bit, but mostly, tell them how much they are worth.

We had a notecard with each girl’s name on it and then we passed the cards around the table and had the girls write only positive things on each other’s cards. It was amazing how difficult it was to get the girls to write anything positive about their friends. Some even refused to write something as shallow as “pretty” because they didn’t want to say that their friend was pretty! Good grief!

Some of the girls were as young as 11, and when they got bored they just up and left. But what happened after that couldn’t have happened if the younger ones were there. The 2 girls we had left had both confessed to self-harming, and one of them showed us her arm with the scratches still there. We spent time just talking to them about other ways they can express their pain aside from self-harming, then we spent some time praying for them. 

Neither of these girls are saved yet, and they weren’t quite sure what to do while we prayed, but I think they took it okay.

I am gifted with this thing where I’ll cry for others who have hardened their hearts to a point where they don’t cry anymore. Like, they can’t cry anymore. Maybe they don’t even realize just how big of a deal some of the stuff they are dealing with is. But I cry. I cry for them. I’m not entirely sure what it does, but I think it can help these hardened people to realize that what has happened to them is not okay, and that it’s okay to hurt. So, of course, I was crying as I prayed for these girls who aren’t older than 15. I explained to them after the prayer that I cry because God in Heaven is crying for them; He is hurting for them and with them.

Please pray with me for these girls who have been so hurt in their short lives. Please pray that the self-harming would end, and that they would find Jesus. Pray that their hearts would be softened.

Thank you for your prayers.