The Girl’s Home
After more than 25 hours on the road and a few overnight stays, we were getting closer and closer to our destination - The Send in Kansas City, MI. In typical road trip fashion, we were relieved to find a place to stop in the middle of Kansas for a quick bathroom break. I had met these new friends at a worship gathering a month prior in Southern California (after writing Lay It All Down Again). They were kind enough to invite me to live in their prayer room for the month of April to work on my book (Want to here more about the book? - here’s the story) When we discovered we all wanted to go to the giant prayer gathering at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas, four of us decided to carpool. While the others finished up in the restrooms, I asked my friend how he was feeling about going to the event. He had his air pods in for most of the trip and seemed distant.
“Honestly, I’m struggling to forgive people that I know I’ll see there and I don’t even want to go anymore.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. It seemed like he had a lot more on his mind than just seeing old contacts and it definitely wasn’t any of my business. My heart filled with compassion for him. I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to give me the words to say.
“Give him Matthew 6:15”
We walked across the street to a local grocery store to grab some things while we waited for the others. The store was the size of a Walgreens back home with the customers discussing their personal lives with the cashiers - everyone clearly knew each other well. The little bakery in the store looked exactly like one I used to visit when I lived in a group home in Kansas for at-risk youth. We would go to the bakery after church on Sunday’s to pick up the leftover bread for the program. I was a junior in high school and 423 miles away from home. At the time, I hated that place. We would earn “points” by finishing our chores on time, staying quiet, and obeying the rules. We wore uniforms in public places, and carried around “point cards” to earn privileges - like having jelly on our toast, speaking, wearing our hair down, or going into the grocery store with staff to help carry out the bread. We weren’t ever allowed anywhere else in the store. During the summer months, we would scrub the whole house twice a day, and the staff would put on white gloves to wipe down our window sills and dressers. If they found any lingering dust, we would have to start our cleaning over again from the beginning. When we weren't cleaning, we were going to church and memorizing Bible verses. It was an experience I resented having at first. I missed my friends and was poorly adjusting to the rigid structure and strict rules of the program. For the first few weeks, I didn’t earn any privileges at all. I was learning to submit to authority.
Back home, my dad and I seemed to bring the worst out in each other and I hated him for it. I hated my mom too. I thought they hated me. I felt deeply rejected and unwanted. Why else would they send me away? It was deeper than that, and not quite as simple. But as a 17 year old, that was the way I saw it. My family and I had hurt each other deeply. We were caught in a toxic cycle of tearing open old wounds. The night of my seventeenth birthday, the relational tensions came to an ugly head. My dad had lost his temper and my mom was on her knees scrubbing the bloody mess out of the carpet in my room. I was running as fast as I could down the street without shoes on, headed to anywhere but there.
A few months later, I found myself in the girls home in Kansas and my parents found themselves in therapy. Our relationship was in ruins and our family needed a miracle.
It was during that season that Matthew 6:15 radically transformed my life. In the midst of the demands of the girls home, I began to encounter the love of Jesus. I started the process of breaking free from my victim mentality, and taking ownership for my actions (that being disrespect and verbal abuse towards my parents) For the first time in years, I began to take my eyes off of their actions, and I started evaluating my own. As much as I had been hurt by them, I also hurt them too. One time I even spit in my dad’s face screaming terrible things at him. I felt guilty for the way I had treated my parents and received forgiveness of my sins through the blood of Jesus crucified on the cross for me. I chose to forgive my parents for their actions. It was an experience that changed me, and an experience I’ll elaborate on in a future post.
I wasn’t exactly sure where we were in Kansas, or how close we were to my old girls home, but we were definitely somewhere in “the middle of nowhere Kansas”, a few hours away from The Send. The familiar sentiment of the little grocery store brought an expansion of bitter-sweet nostalgia to my heart. The chances of it being the same grocery store were slim to none. I put the memories away and we checked out.
“If you forgive others, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.” -Matthew 6:14-15
My friend and I ended up having a quick come to Jesus, Matthew 6:15 conversation in the pizza place next door. As I scanned the walls of the restaurant, I was surprised to see the name of my old high school all over the walls. I asked the woman at the cash register how far away we were from Kingman, KS. I wasn't the one driving, and had no idea where we were. She gave me a funny look.
“Honey, we are IN Kingman.”
I told her the story about the behavior reform group home that used to get the leftover bread from the grocery store in the town. “Well it would have been that one for sure, honey. Have a nice day.”
We were 3 minutes away from the girls home. The woman said it had been empty for years now. We rejoined our friends in the car and drove straight there. Someone happened to be inside and I walked the halls again, 14 years later thanking God for transforming my heart in that place and teaching me the power of forgiveness. The home was where I made my first quilt. It was where the Lord started stitching my heart back together and showing me His love as a Heavenly Father. Check out this little video tour:
The furniture is mostly the same lol
How crazy of the Lord to lead me back to that place?! I’m excited to write more about my experience there in my memoir. In the midst of the crazy rules and terrible home decor, the Lord met me in that place! I had an encounter with the fear of the Lord when I read Matthew 6:15 in that place that has forever marked me and changed my life as I’ve actively chosen forgiveness for others, because He first forgave me! God is so good.
“Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story” -Psalm 107:2
Until next time, ♥️bec
