Tough Love

I just had a really rough week. Honestly, I can't remember a tougher time with kids since I've been working at ICYA. It was a small thing - an honest mistake - that got blown so out of proportion to the point that death threats were uttered and we were essentially quarantined overnight, presumably for our own protection.

We were at camp with a group of 10 teens who attend our school, and their school staff. It was meant as a retreat of love and growth and learning about God - it seemed like a war zone, with us as the targets. I walked away wounded, wondering what forgiveness looks like to a group of kids who feel justified in their actions. Some of those kids I've known for almost five years, and to see them turn on me so quickly... it hurt. I thought about Christ, on the cross, asking God to forgive his executers "for they know not what they do" and wondered at what strength it must have took for him to say those words and mean them.

It ended better. The morning after we finally forced the issue, and found forgiveness between ourselves & a few of the teens. One especially was able to recognize how devastating her actions were, and it was powerful for me to see the transformation in her. The others, they feel they were in the right. They've magnanimously - forgive my cynicism - "forgiven" us, but offer no remorse for their own actions. I keep turning my mind back to that picture on the cross, and wonder if I have the strength to forgive as well. A passage in I John haunts me: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins... We love because he first loved us."

I write a title "Tough Love", and I know that phrase is usually meant for using discipline with those you love, but for me I mean it fairly literally: today it's tough to show love.

My coworker reminded me that the hottest fires produce the purest gold. I'll take that to heart, and pray that will be the case for this time as well.