I know what you may be thinking as you read the title of this blog post...but no. I am not the one hurting. This title is actually from a book I recently read called "Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and The Doctor Who Heals Them". This post may be a little long, so bear with me.
This book is about Randy Christiensen, a doctor "who has dedicated his life to caring for society's throwaway kids—the often-abused, unloved children who live on the streets without access to proper health care, all the while fending off constant threats from thugs, gangs, pimps, and other predators. With the Winnebago as his moveable medical center, Christensen and his team travel around the outskirts of Phoenix, attending to the children and teens who need him most" (Random House).
Let me first say that this book has changed my perspective on homelessness and has given me a deeper insight into the lives of children and teens that so desperately just need somebody to love them. It has shattered all my "romantic" notions of swooping in and saving the lives of broken teenagers and has instead replaced it with the raw and real understanding that these children come with baggage, hurt and pain all surrounded with protective walls that no adult could ever break down on their own. As Dr. Christiensen writes in his book "these kids had built fortresses around their hearts. They were not about to share with me secrets that they had never told anyone...Mary was so shut down that I wasn't sure if anyone could reach her".
Ever since I have returned from Guatemala, I have known that God has put it in my heart to help the invisible children that our socitey tends to ignore. I have read books like "Freedom Writers" by Erin Gruwell and "The Water is Wide" by Pat Conroy, all inspirational stories of people changing the lives of the children around them. But never once did I ever consider the hardships and trials that these people faced.
One quote that impacted me the most in this book was when Dr. Christiensen was being introduced to a new patient on his bus:
"In that crystalline moment, my eyes dropped to Mary's wrist. It was very thin and white, and I cold see the tender knob of the ulna bone. The bracelet, made of large letter beades strung together into a sentance, was large and conspicious. I read the beads she had strung together. It took me a moment to absorb what they said: ASK ME WHY I HURT. For a moment I was so caught off guard I thought my heart had stopped. My breath caught. I wanted to ask her what painful memories had left their mark so deep that she needed to wear this plea around her wrist. But she suddenly turned to me with a look as if to say, "Don't ask. Not yet""....
When I read this passage an overwhelming feeling washed over me. These are the children I want to help, these are the children that I want to see come from terrible backgrounds and rise up to the person they were created to be. These are the teens that have been placed in my heart. But how could I ever help them? I can't relate to their stories, their pain. But as I have read from "Ask Me Why I Hurt" and re-reading other books, is that these children don't need "rescuing". I have seen that they don't need somebody who is fake, or false to who they are. What they do need is an adult who they can trust, who they can come to and know that they are SAFE and who can be a support sytem when they don't have one.
As mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daugherts, sons, ect. we need to take the time and effort to help the invisible of our nations. To be a voice for the voiceless.
As Dr. Christiensen writes "children were the same everywhere, I thought...In many ways children across our country...were living in conditions similar to those in an underdeveloped nation. Society didn't want to admit that, but it was true. We are such a rich country I thought, with so many caring people. It hurts me to think that we let this happen...I still believed we all shared the responsiblity for taking care of our children"
No comments:
Post a Comment