eleven.

last week i  went on a spring break trip to Memphis, Tennessee to hang out with a bunch of sweet kids at an after school program. this is where i met a second grader named Paris Romero. Paris was a little fireball, one of the few people whom i consider more sassy than myself. outgoing, bold, honest and strong-willed are a few of the words that i would use to describe her. as the week went on though it becoming strikingly clear that Paris was also wounded, jaded and afraid. clearly this young girl had seen more hurt and injustice than most 2nd graders and she broke my heart. she didn't just desire attention and affection, she needed it. we were buddies for the first few days of being at the gym, but on wednesday, something changed. the two of us had been playing, when i (as the leader of the group) had to step away and check on one of our students; as i walked away i promised Paris that i would be right back. well apparently i was taking too long, because she came looking for me and what she found shook our new found friendship to its core. when she found me she saw me talking to one boy, with a different little boy on my back, and this simply pushed her over the edge. after yelling at me for not coming back to play with her, she ran away with tears in her eyes.
Eventually i found her under the bleachers and, surprise, she wouldn't talk to me. when i tried to explain to her what had happened, she got up and ran away again, and i, unwilling to let wounds fester, followed. she locked herself in a bathroom stall, so i stood outside and refused to leave until she explained to me why she was angry with me.
i has recently heard a pastor talk about how anytime he met with someone who was angry, he would always ask them what they were fearing, because the root of anger is often fear. with that in mind i deduced that Paris, a sweet, impressionable, wounded, distrusting 8 year old, was afraid that i had moved on from her, that i had left her and that i wasn't going to come back. so as she stood, locked in her stall, paralyzed by her fear and anger and hurt, explained to her the situation and that i loved her and that i hadn't left her and that if i had promised to come back to her, then i would. i tried to affirm her trust in me and promise her that no matter how mad she was at me, that i would be there for her, waiting, ready to be her friend, forsaking all others, i would wait patiently until she was ready, because i wanted her, i wanted to be her friend. and then i waited.
when she finally came out of the bathroom i found her on the bleachers, with a damp paper towel, trying to clean the white rubber bottoms of her shoes. for the next 35 minutes we sat in near silence, scrubbing her shoes. it was then and there that her trust in me and my love was restored and from that point on our friendship strengthened. she trusted me again. and that was enough.

as we were sitting there cleaning her shoes all i could think about was the fact that I am Paris.
i have had a rough year. probably the worst year of my life to date. you see, 2 1/2 years ago i got really sick and never really stopped being sick. because i was sick, i then got depressed. and then i was broken up with and then i graduated from college and my cell group girls whom i had poured 7 years of my life and heart into graduated high school and moved on and i moved out of fayetteville and back to rogers and i got more sick and i was tired and scared and sad. really sad. major parts of my identity ended all at the same time and i couldn't cope. so i got more depressed. and when i say i depressed i mean, never want to get out of bed, "what's the point?" depressed. and then in the depth of my depression i had a flashback to a traumatic event that i had so skillfully suppressed, that i didn't even know had happened. on a random night in October, as i was trying to hold myself and my life together, to no avail, i remembered that when i was 11 years old i was sexually abused by my neighbor. the memory of that event shook me to my core. i had been so scared and confused and ashamed that i had hidden it not only from the world, my family and my friends, but from myself. for the next 5 months, that memory ruined me. i was angry. angry at the guy who did that to me, angry at the world, angry that it made me believe that i was dirty, that i was unworthy of love, that i wasn't valuable, that i had no worth to men aside from my physical being. i was angry that this abuse was now part of my story, part of making me into the person that i am today. i was angry that i now had a laundry list of issues and insecurities and baggage that i had never asked for. i was angry because of the injustice that was inflicted upon me when i was a helpless, innocent child. i was angry at God. and i was scared that i was too dirty and broken for Him to love me anymore. i was scared and i realized that i had spent my life from that moment when i was 11 trying make myself worthy of His love. it was never really about what had happened to me, but it was all about the lies that event had made me believe about myself, and the fact that i felt powerless to fight back against them, because i had believed them as truth for over a decade of my life. i was mad. more mad than i have ever been and ever hope to be again.

i went through a phase where i was so wounded and broken that i no longer trusted God, no longer trusted that He loved me or wanted me or cared for me. i thought he had left me and wasn't interested in coming back. i was angry. i was scared that He didn't love me anymore, that He had never really loved me. i know it all sounds ridiculous, but it's true, i lost my trust in Jesus' love and didn't know if it would ever return. but over time, as i kept myself locked in that bathroom stall, Jesus stood outside and whispered to me over and over again, that forsaking all others, He would wait for me. that He wanted me. that He would never leave me or forsake me. He wasn't giving up on me or walking away from me, even though at the time i didn't want Him at all, even though i wanted to be mad at Him and blame all of it on Him. He wanted to be my friend. He wanted to love me. and then the unimaginable happened. he sat there with me on those bleachers, in silence as i contemplated my willingness to trust again, and washed my dirty, gross shoes. He wasn't sitting there waiting for me to apologize for not trusting Him or do something to regain His love. He simply sat down and served me. even after i had yelled at Him and walked away and hid and tried to resist His attempts to communicate His love. No, He showed His love by serving me. like when He washed the disciples feet. He humbled me and loved me and showed His heart, by humbling Himself. and it was those moments that restored my trust. restored my certainty. restored my ability to see through the hurt that He loved me, that He was true and that He loved me no matter how wounded and dirty and broken i was. He reminded me that after the pain, He was there, waiting to sit down and help me clean myself back up again. sure there were marks that could never be removed, but He made them shine again. He made me shine again, when shining was something i never thought would be possible. "i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" means that i can shine even when the world has done all it can to make me dull. He restores.

so, thank you paris for letting me wash your shoes.

xoxo. abbie.