Reflections on a training

I am feeling very full today. Not only do I have the weekend off, the first one in many weeks and the only one for another 6 or 7 weeks, but I just returned home yesterday from Oregon. I went to Oregon to do a training for a boarding school that works with teens who have been in trouble in some sort of way. Some of them have done drugs, acted out, gotten bad grades, etc. The thing that all of them seemed to have in common is that they had given up on life and anything fulfilling or worthwhile.
I walked in on Tuesday and I remember their faces. These are young men and women between the ages of 14-16 and all  of them had a look on their face that said they had given up. Some of them were from the poorer parts the country, others from more affluent, but despair is classless.
Hearing them share about their lives can be heart breaking. As many times as I have done these trainings, it still amazes me how quickly the promise of a full life can be buried under the so called realities of life. Each of these "kids" came into the world full of promise and possibilities, and so quickly put all that under a wall of fear and belief that said they have nothing to look forward to except pain.
The opportunity and challenge before me is to look under the pain and mask of toughness or sadness and see that there is something more inside. Some of these young men and women have a very tough exterior. Sometimes so tough that it requires more than the three days to get them to see that there is more to life. Sometimes it means I ask some to leave and come back when they are willing to look beyond the beliefs that they have developed in life thus far.
My task isn't really any different than that of any training that I do. I see people of all social classes and various different backgrounds etc, and the walls and masks that they put up are not all that different. People sometimes walk into a training believing they don't "need" to be there because their life is fine. And that is exactly why it serves them to be there, because there is so much more for them and for everyone, no matter where they are in life. The training simply assists to accelerate their progress by years.
With these kids, it feels different to me. For many, they have never felt like there was anyone they can trust or look to to be honest with them. Some have grown up in extreme conditions of pain inflicted upon pain. Some have grown up in the affluence that others dream about, yet expectations are so high that they feel they can never be "good enough" to measure up. Some have grown up in homes with the "rose colored glasses" feel where we don't acknowledge hurt, emptiness of feeling not good enough for fear that we will see what we don't want to see. Under all of this, it is my task to see that person they were born to be and assist them to bring it out.
The faces I saw on Tuesday are much different than the faces I saw on Thursday. In two days, these young men and women went from feeling like there was nothing more in life and shifted into a place where they are starting to see an abundance of possibilities. When on Tuesday the sharing was very limited, limited to the pain and beliefs that they had based on life experiences, on Thursday they shared how they had never felt like this and could never hope to feel this way from any drug! As we began to look at life and the possibilities before them, they went deeper and deeper into the desires of the heart and the life they could have, realizing it is all possible when they trust themselves.
As we circled up on Thursday evening, just before this part of their training was coming to a completion, until the next phase, they shared how different life looks to them. Instead of the empty vacant looks in their eyes, they had a glow, a shine and a countenance was amazing, especially considering that just two days before, there was simply a hollow look on their faces.
As I sit here, I am grateful to be home. I don't have many weekends where I am home, so I am embracing this one knowing it will be awhile before another one is available.
On the other hand, I am also grateful and fulfilled to have been part of the first steps of transformation for some young men and women who a few days ago, believed life was just empty and painful. I am blessed.

Comments

[Gracy Mantoan]

Oh, wow! What an amazing experience!

[Raine Willis]

Thanks for sharing. That's what life is all about my friend... calling forth the greatness in everyone around us!