Frank and Elizabeth are our Philadelphia contacts where they live and ministry in Kensington. The world would look at this neighborhood and see nothing worthwhile, nothing of value. They look at their neighborhood and see people in need of love, in need of their Savior. They live their lives to show people the love of Jesus. The following story is just a glimpse into how they are able to love people and share Jesus.
“lay your burdens down and come back home”
Those are the lyrics of the song I’ve never heard before, playing from the Enter The Worship Circle Pandora station playing in our living room.
I’m typing on my computer, catching up on emails, and a 14 year old girl who I never met before this morning is sleeping on our couch. She was exhausted enough to fall asleep in the clamor of a three-child house, and now Frank has taken the kids to the Please Touch Museum so that she can continue to sleep in peace while this music washes over us.
“lay your burdens down and come back home”
But what if someone who lives in your “home” is a mother who you barely knew existed because you lived in a foster home from ages 3 until 10? What if it all falls apart, so you leave and wander from friend’s house to friend’s house for two days, and then “home” is a place that you are locked out of. What if “home” is a place where the depression that rules in your heart and mind keep you from being able to have a single day’s peace with your flesh and blood?
“lay your burdens down and come back home”
On this dreary, cloudy Wednesday for a couple of hours, we get to be “home” to 14 year old Alexis. Frank was walking up the street to do some roof work at Cast Your Cares for the day when he found her trying to get into her house. My awesome block captain husband who makes it a point to know everyone had already met her family when they moved in last year. When Alexis used Frank’s phone to try to call someone in her family, there was no answer, so without any other good solution we welcomed her into our home for the day.
After a couple hours of sleep to an Enter the Worship Circle soundtrack, some conversation and prayers, with plans to meet a friend and then head to a local youth shelter I watched Alexis head back out our door with a backpack I filled with some snacks and toiletries.
Later her mom stopped by to let us know that she had filed 302 papers to have Alexis committed, with no plans to allow her back in her home again before she turned 18. Her mom is done parenting her. After her mandatory stay in the program, she will probably go to a group home.
Varaso Family at their home in Kensington, PA.
During a teeny tiny window of opportunity, we got to give a piece of “home” to Alexis. And maybe while she was sleeping those words sunk into her spirit, and she will have the desire and find the help to “lay her burdens down and come back home.”
When situations are this sticky and seemingly hopeless, I have to find hope in believing that this concept of “home” originates in a Person. All of the beauty and comfort and belonging and wholeness and rightness that comes from the feeling of being home is just a reflection of who our Father is and what His heart for us is like. When we long for “home” we are longing for Him. We are longing for what only He can give us in an eternal and permanent way. And He is longing to bring us Home, into eternal belongingness with Him.
So please pray for Alexis. If we ever see her again it may not be for years. But she does have our phone numbers, so it’s possible that we may still have an opportunity to connect with her wherever she lands. In any case, pray that Goodness and Mercy will follow her all the days of her life, and that she will dwell in the house of God forever.
“lay your burdens down and come back home”
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