Forgiveness and the Number NINE

So today my husband and I went to church. The sermon was fantastic. The youth minister spoke and his message was about welcoming everyone to your "team" or church, even if you may not really want to or may not really "like" them. It was presented in much better terms that that--but you get the point, which is that as Christians, we should love everyone and make them feel included and loved. That is true Christianity. As I sat there, I began to think about my own feelings about certain individuals that I have crossed paths with in life as I have battled to keep my daughter alive. I wondered if it was even in me. I wondered if I should just go throw myself up at the alter right then and say "Halt. No can do. I can forgive maybe that person, but I don't think I can forgive HIM." As I listened and the minister made more valid points, I thought, "Stephanie, you must try to forgive."

I admit, I had avoided going back to church since I blasted it on my blog. I knew that my daughter's ex boyfriend had started going there and I thought "I'm not going to the same church as him. Not happenin." (I know, very Christian-like and mature). I was watching church online, which is great but not nearly the same feeling as being there. I recently found out he was back in jail, so therefore, I felt safe to go again today---and ironically enough, the message was about just that very subject...how it is wrong to want to isolate someone from church. Coincidence, huh? I'm sure there are people at church who don't care for me or care for my drug posters, my bluntness or my strong personality. Does that intimidate me? No. Why should I discourage someone else from attending church? The more I sat there, the more I felt my conscious weighing on me. I decided I was going to the county jail after church, and I was going to deliver some of our drug awareness posters and I was going to drop off a couple of books about addiction and recovery, written by my friend Aaron Michael Garcia and maybe, just maybe, that inmate may see those things and change his path. He weighed on my heart. I prayed for him over and over in church. So--after church, we did just that. As we pulled up to the jail, I looked at the inmate roster. There were NINE people in that county jail that my daughter knew, some she went to school with, some she hung out with, some she did drugs with, and some I have kicked out of my house and vowed to whoop the tar out of them if I ever saw them again. Today, they were all sitting in the county jail. NINE people I personally knew from her life. NINE. I can't even count nine of my friends that have ever even gone to jail for a minute. She had NINE there today.

What in the heck. NINE. How could so many people from a little community, the same group of friends, end up being so absolutely lost. That isn't the totality of it either. That is just the amount in the jail today that I knew. We aren't counting the multitude of friends of theirs who have died because of these choices.

So--I dropped off my posters, with faces of their friends, some gone, some in recovery---and I prayed. I prayed that the familiar faces that they have known and now buried will somehow make an impact on their hearts. I prayed that somehow the faces of the friends they played baseball with, went to school with, dated, or just played tag with in grade school, who are now GONE--would make them remember life before drugs. I prayed that they all could get their heads on straight, break the addiction chain and perhaps be sitting in those pews some day listening to a sermon. I hoped that I could grow in my own Christianity to be able to welcome them and not isolate myself again from the church.

So tonight, I am asking you to say a prayer for those nine people who need a change in their hearts, minds, spirits and lives. They are too young to die. They are too young to give up on. They too have families that love them.

Would I be able to sit next to them at church and welcome them with open arms?  I don't know. I'm working on that one....I'm trying.  I do forgive, but a Momma never forgets.