"the talk"

I am sorry I didn’t BLOG yesterday when I got home from the gymnastics meet. I was devastatingly tired, and I could hardly keep my eyes open as I drove home. The only thing on my mind was to get home and lay down on my bed. Thankfully, I didn’t have my psychology class today. This means I had a little time to sleep in and then I went and met with Josh at a coffee house before we headed over to Snider to talk with these kids.
~The Talk~
I wanted to take out my phone and take a picture so I could share it, but I don’t think that would have been completely appropriate at the time. To set the scene I think it would be good to explain these kids a little bit first. These are the kids at the school that have had the most referrals (written citations) to the office from different teachers, or from the on school Police officers. The majority of them have horrible home life. Parents are on drugs, there is abuse, in and out of foster care, tossed around, talked down to, not cared for and just hurting. There were only about 11 kids in the room, and the teacher is actually a Young Life committee member. She has a huge heart for these kids, and does an amazing job with them. Reggie, the kid I have been spending time with was also in the room. It was cool because Josh was introduced by one of the other kids in the class and then Reggie introduced me. I will try to remember what he said when he talked about me. Reggie said something along the lines of, “this is Mikey, he works for Young Life and is a really easy person to talk to. He always listens, and I know he cares about me. I trust him because of how he treats me.” It felt really good inside to hear Reggie talk so highly about me. Josh and I started off with getting to know the group a little bit. Asking them what their favorite sports team is and who they looked up to. They told us and it broke the ice okay. Then we got into what we wanted to talk about, and Josh re-introduced who I was and why I was talking to them. We set up the Jenga game. I started off with an abridged version of my life story. The talk basically went like this…..Every time I spoke of a difficult or challenging time, I would pull out a Jenga block. For instance, when I was a freshmen, my good friend Kyle Erick (RIP) killed himself with a 12 gage shot gun to his chin. When I explained that story, I pulled out a block. When I talked about how I got into drugs and selling at a young age, I pulled out another block. When I explained some of the nasty life experience I have had I would take out a block. Josh was actually pulling them out as I spoke. We work really well with each other. I talked and talked and the kids listened. They made eye contact, and I felt like they may have connected in some way to several parts of my story. Well, I came to a point in my story and in my life when I said, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.” This was the turning point in my life, where I started making differences. I stopped and said, “look at this Jenga tower. See how it is hardly standing, you could almost blow it over.” I explained that is what my life was like. Just barley hanging on. BUT, still standing. Then we showed them that as I took positive steps in the right direction, I started adding the Jenga blocks back to the tower and my foundation of who I am and my life, started becoming a lot more firm. I think they really could equate it to happenings in their life. Josh and I ended it with re-iterating the message, which was don’t give up on yourself, no matter how shaky your life may seem. There is always hope, and we are here to help if you would accept it. Now is where the real difficulty begins. Now we have to show these kids that we are going to stick around, and we aren’t afraid of putting in the time. They need that so badly. The talk just went really good, and I know it wasn’t anything that I thought up. But because of diligent prayer and me admitting that I couldn’t do it was I able to become a willing vessel for Christ.
Psalm 25 helped out a lot too.

I love all my readers and I hope you all have great weekends!

God bless you,

Mikey