RUNNING TO A NEW LIFE

May 30, 2010

Let me begin with four stories that witness to God’s healing power at work in the lives of four youth.  While attending the United Methodist Women’s General Assembly in St. Louis several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend the day volunteering at Epworth Children and Family Services, a ministry that for 140 years has been devoted to sharing God’s love while caring for children.  An outreach of the United Methodist Church, Epworth’s ministry includes a residential treatment program, a therapeutic school, community outreach programs, youth emergency services, family focus programs, and transitional and independent living programs for children from seven years old until they are launched into the community.

Reading their promotional literature I learned that at first, the children came to Epworth by train – Civil War orphans who were lost, bewildered, and hungry.  During the Great Depression, their parents brought them seeking safe haven.  Each child and parent came praying for someone to give them hope.  Today the children come with broken and angry hearts.  They are lost, bewildered, alone and hungry.  They are weary and wary, longing for a brighter future.

Epworth is a place where children and youth find healing and hope.  At Epworth kids find strength – physical, emotional, and spiritual strength.  When there is no love, they find warmth and safety.  When there is no place else to turn… there is Epworth. 

Hear now, in their own words, the stories of God’s healing power at work in the lives of four youth who are finding hope and strength…

… “My Dad and I lived on the streets.  We always kept one eye open for trouble.  One day, my dad dropped me off at Epworth.  He didn’t want to.  But I guess he had to.  At first, the only thing that I liked there was the shelter.  After awhile, I started to trust the staff.  We found that I knew a lot about the outdoors.  I’m going to work with things that grow.  It’s called horticulture.  I used to climb trees to hide from the world.  Now I grow them.”

… “I hated school.  I couldn’t concentrate in class.  My dad said I was useless and stupid.  I got into fights, flunked twice and dropped out of high school.  I just couldn’t take it anymore.  When I walked into Epworth, I couldn’t wait to get right back out.  Then a teacher discovered that I have a learning disorder.  I’m not really stupid, I’m just different.  I earned my GED and plan to graduate from college.  I learned a lot at Epworth.  And now, everything’s back in order.”

… “When I was little, my Dad left my mom and me.  He didn’t hurt us anymore.  Mom had to work two jobs and we still couldn’t make ends meet.  I was left by myself a lot.  I felt lonely and got into drugs.  Soon, my life spiraled downward.  It stopped the day I walked into Epworth.  They help me discover a talent that I never knew I had.  An eye for photography!  Now, I see the possibility of a brighter future.  ‘Smile!’”

… “I’ve been chased by the cops since I was nine.  In and out of so many detention centers I lost count.  Until I was placed at Epworth.  Man, they were strict.  They made me follow the rules and forced me to look at something I’d never seen before.  The good inside me.  I started to see the difference between right and wrong.  Now, I’m no longer running away.  I am running to a new life.  I’m going to be a police officer.”

Running to a new life!  Did you hear the confirmation of God’s healing power at work in these young lives?  From finding the good inside to seeing the possibility of a brighter future… from putting things back in order to running to a new life… God’s healing power is at work.

In the healing stories from the Bible that we have heard this morning, we hear the same stories of people running toward new life.  According to Mark’s Gospel, having heard of this man called Jesus who had been moving throughout the region sharing God’s healing power, a woman with a flow of blood who for twelve years had longed to be made well and a man whose blindness had kept him from living his life to the fullest, both came to Jesus for healing, both believing in the impossible.  Both were praying that they would be made whole again.  And their prayers were answered.  According to Mark’s Gospel both were healed. 

Just as we experience the healing power of God in the stories of the Epworth youth, we experience that same power in biblical stories.  In faith a woman who was at the end of her rope, found herself close enough to Jesus to touch his cloak and when she did, she was healed.  But in the process Jesus sensed that “power had gone forth from him” and when he asked who had touched him she had to tell the truth… the whole truth before God.  In faith, a group of people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged for their friend to be healed.  Twice, Jesus put his hands on the blind man’s eyes and then sent him home, healed and whole.  Trusting others with his well being, the blind man’s sight was restored. 

A truth for us today is that we all stand in need of God’s healing power.  In some way, we all experience brokenness.  We all need to find the good inside.   For some of us, like the woman with the flow of blood, this will involve telling the whole truth to God, believing that nothing can separate us from God’s love.  For others, like the blind man,  it will mean trusting our friends to help us experience God’s presence and in the process see life with new eyes.  For some of us it will mean learning to trust again and discovering our God-given potential.  For others it will mean claiming the fact that we aren’t stupid, that we are just different and God loves us exactly the way we are.  For all of us, God’s healing power will give us the courage and the strength to run toward a new life in faith and with hope.

While spending the day at Epworth a group of us played games with some of the children enrolled in school there.  We had been told that this school was their last chance… that everyone else had given up on them.  For over an hour, one of the little boys played “Sorry” with two of the volunteers.  We learned later that he was only seven years old.  Seven years old and everyone had already given up on him.

I believe that God never gives up on us.  We all stand in need of God’s healing love.  But God does not give up on us.  God never gives up on us.