The following is a post I wrote for the Refuge For Women Blog
We walk quietly into the long, rectangular shaped bedroom. The smell of a fresh coat of paint and new
carpet lingers in the air. There are no
curtains on the windows yet and I can see the trees moving softly in the wind. There are four twin size beds lined against
the wall, but there is no other furniture in the room. As we all find a place to sit or stand in the
room I am suddenly overcome with the reality of it all.
Today we are praying through the home that will be our
Chicago area Refuge For Women. I am
overwhelmed at the reality that God has provided such a beautiful, spacious
home for his precious daughters to heal and be restored. The reality that these precious daughters
will have the opportunity to start over and step into a new life that is good
and full of purpose is about to happen and it hits me like a ton of bricks. As I sit on the bed, my eyes well up with
tears. I can picture these women resting
their head on a clean pillow, in a safe room, and surrounded by people who love
and care for them.
I see this room in stark contrast to the reality of where
she came from. I know she probably
bounced around from hotel to hotel not sure where she would be from one night
to the next. I know there were probably
nights she cried herself to sleep wishing her life could be different. I know she often felt hopeless, worthless,
and unloved. But here in this room, she
will now have a place to call her own.
She can lie down at night free from the fear of physical violence and
free from people filling her head with lies about her worth. I know that some nights will be hard and she
may have night terrors and flashbacks of the horrible things that happened to
her, but she will now have someone beside her who can comfort her, pray with
her, and ease her fear and anxiety. She
will no longer have to turn to drugs to numb herself from the pain. I know that in the morning she can wake up
and choose what she wants to wear that day and not what someone else has chosen
for her to wear.
The dining room area hosts a long oval table, but not much
else. There are no chairs around the
table, but as we stand there to pray, I imagine the women sitting around the
table for one of their classes. They are
hearing, maybe for the very first time, what a healthy relationship looks
like. They are learning the importance
of boundaries, what is acceptable, and how they should expect to be treated. I
know the life they came from was very different than what they will experience
in this home. Most of the women who come
will have grown up in homes filled with dysfunction, drug and alcohol abuse,
physical or sexual abuse, or neglect.
They have not had healthy relationships modeled for them and so the way
they began to form relationships of their own was skewed by what they had been
exposed to. I know they accepted being
treated as “less than” because they had been told so many times that they were
unimportant that they actually began to believe that about themselves.
I am overcome by the reality that soon these precious daughters
will begin to see themselves in a new light.
The light. The light of Jesus
Christ and how He sees them. The hard
work of healing won’t be easy. Their
days will be long and structured, but they will learn that no matter what their
past has been, that they can have a future that is bright and full of
hope. Despite whatever their past held, they will
learn that they have a heavenly father that loves them beyond anything they
could ever imagine. He loved them before
they even breathed their first breath and nothing can ever separate them from
that love. In His eyes, they have infinite worth and value. He sees them as forgiven, beloved, known,
cherished, and accepted.
My heart bursts with joy at the reality that these women
will soon arrive and they will soon begin to see themselves the same way that
Jesus sees them.
