Good morning…
One of my favorite hours in the week holds space for our therapeutic community group to gather around the sacred table at PAWkids. Unique adults – small and tall, young and old, black and white, male and female – we are guided through creative activities which help us to express the wide range of emotions washing over us each day. Together we build resilience, positive coping skills, and true, authentic relationships.
One of the newest group members is Miranda. She grew up in Grove Park and was a regular participant in the PAWkids programming as a child. She has returned to the community and is helping with the Afterschool Enrichment program, a program in which a group of us Northside Church women volunteer weekly. With Miranda’s arrival, one new ritual has begun to bless our therapeutic community group. To end our weekly time together, Miranda reads to us a poem from her journal, and we are all deeply touched, often moved to tears.
Yesterday, Miranda gave me permission to share with you one of her incredible poems. Raw. Real. Vividly descriptive. Please open your heart to experience what it feels like to be an unprotected child raised in poverty, neglect and abuse.
May these honest, challenging words expand in you new places of prayer and move you to tangibly support those in deep need within our community. We each have an opportunity to be a hinge, changing the direction of history, learning to love with the healing love of God.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27, NIV).
…Sue…
P.S. If you have connections in the publishing world, a world which could benefit deeply from the creatively expressive voice of Miranda, please reach out to me with ideas of how we might best support this young, budding poet.
P.S.S. With the the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provide food stamp benefits to families in need, and the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program set to run out on November 1st due to decisions made during this government shutdown our community is stepping up to stand in the gap. Please prayerfully consider how you might be part of God’s creative solution.
