Taking it home...

When I originally started my job as a counselor [at the Lydia Center], my boss told me "don't take it home with you," and I thought 'sure...I leave the paperwork at work.' Not so. It's not the paperwork that goes home with me. It's the precious hearts and pain and disciplinary issues of the ladies that go home with me.

• Some days all their requests and the chaos and noise make my head spin.
• Some days the attitudes make me want to shake them and tell them to grow up.
• Some days the angry outbursts make me want to hide under my desk.
• Some days the refusal to talk and share of themselves during counseling makes me want to scream, or at the very least walk out of the room for a bit 'til my impatience calms down.
• Some days I mourn as I see the continual hardening of a life, or when another lady chooses to leave...unchanged.
• Some days (like today) I am priveleged to pray with ladies as they commit their lives to Christ for the first time.
• Some days I rejoice at an "aha" moment, or b/c of the emotional and spiritual healing that God is doing in their lives.
• Some days I love them so much I cry...because I want so much more for them than they want for themselves.
  

I find I am learning at the Lydia Center the things I most wanted (when initially taking the "job") to learn:

1) Not to stereotype, judge, or look down upon people who are living in addictions, sexual immorality, and crime, b/c in my heart I have the same exact pain and sins...I only choose less physically destructive and more legal coping mechanisms, and hopefully allow myself to be convicted of my sin and live in a lifestyle of confession and forgiveness.

2) The heart of the Father. Surely He feels some of these things when He deals with me!

3) To be stretched. Oh yes, WAAAAY out of my comfort zone! But that is good. Because He is good and He is with me in the stretching. I had a thought the other day that (like a rubberband) God only stretches us to the point that He wants to launch us. So I'm getting excited about what He's preparing to launch me to in my future. Yet for now I will be stretched...b/c I am called here and my heart is here.

I am thankful for the heart of compassion that Christ has given me for these precious ladies, and I only hope that I will be faithful to love them with His love, to see them with His eyes, to walk with them to the best of my ability during this crucial time of their lives.

-Lorene Brubaker, Lydia Center