Your Eyes Smile
"What's changed about me? Can you notice anything different since I became a Christian?"
The question hangs in the air. The teenaged girl who is asking it is someone I had met several years earlier, in the early 1990's, because I was her case-worker when she started senior high school. I worked for the School Board as an outreach counsellor, attempting to get teenagers who had been suspended or expelled, or who had dropped out, back into some level of education. We'll call her "Willow", because it's one of those hippy-ish names that so many of the teenagers on Vancouver Island (California North) seemed to have.
Willow's dad was in prison, for raping two of the family's babysitters. He and his wife were big-time advocates of peyote and hashish being the doorway to spiritual enlightenment. Willow's two older sisters had been abused by the father as well, and he used Willow as a threat to keep them in line: "If you don't, then I'll do Willow..." Not surprisingly, Willow was, as a friend of mine puts it, "a heavy bag of hammers".
During our interaction as outreach counselor/troubled youth, Willow noticed that I wore a crucifix. "You're a Christian, aren't you? I can tell, you wear a Christian cross." (A plain cross, such as most Protestants wear, means nothing to Willow's crowd; a crucifix is a "Christian" cross because Jesus is on it -- anything else is just jewelry.) Willow asked me to come and pray a blessing on her room, because "evil things" often tormented her at night. I agreed, provided that her mom was present.
When I arrived at the house, Willow showed me her remedy for the evil things -- she would read from Psalms until they went away. It was a Jehovah's Witness version of the New Testament & Psalms -- God seems to use just about anything when people honestly call out to Him. I anointed the window-frame and door posts with oil and prayed (out loud, for both Willow & her mother's benefit) for safety and peace in that room.
Willow was dating a Christian guy -- ironically, he was interested in her because she was so wild, and he was trying to distance himself from his mother's faith. Willow liked her boyfriend's mom, and would sometimes accompany her to city-wide Christian events. My wife & I were able to pray for her numerous times in those settings. Willow eventually decided to be a follower of Jesus, dumped her boyfriend, but kept up a great relationship with his mom, who took her under her wing.
Two years later, Willow heard that we were moving to Winnipeg, and called me to go out for a cup of coffee, just for old times. During our conversation, she asked me, "What's changed about me? Can you notice anything different since I became a Christian?"
I thought about it for a moment, and then replied, "When I first met you, you would laugh and smile a lot, but your eyes never changed. It was like your soul was numb. But now, your eyes smile."
Willow sat up straight and laughed out loud. "That's exactly what it felt like! But now I feel so -- I don't know -- alive!"
She leans back into her seat in the restaurant, looking out the window at the ocean and the mountains in the distance.
"My eyes smile," she muses. "I like that."
The question hangs in the air. The teenaged girl who is asking it is someone I had met several years earlier, in the early 1990's, because I was her case-worker when she started senior high school. I worked for the School Board as an outreach counsellor, attempting to get teenagers who had been suspended or expelled, or who had dropped out, back into some level of education. We'll call her "Willow", because it's one of those hippy-ish names that so many of the teenagers on Vancouver Island (California North) seemed to have.
Willow's dad was in prison, for raping two of the family's babysitters. He and his wife were big-time advocates of peyote and hashish being the doorway to spiritual enlightenment. Willow's two older sisters had been abused by the father as well, and he used Willow as a threat to keep them in line: "If you don't, then I'll do Willow..." Not surprisingly, Willow was, as a friend of mine puts it, "a heavy bag of hammers".
During our interaction as outreach counselor/troubled youth, Willow noticed that I wore a crucifix. "You're a Christian, aren't you? I can tell, you wear a Christian cross." (A plain cross, such as most Protestants wear, means nothing to Willow's crowd; a crucifix is a "Christian" cross because Jesus is on it -- anything else is just jewelry.) Willow asked me to come and pray a blessing on her room, because "evil things" often tormented her at night. I agreed, provided that her mom was present.
When I arrived at the house, Willow showed me her remedy for the evil things -- she would read from Psalms until they went away. It was a Jehovah's Witness version of the New Testament & Psalms -- God seems to use just about anything when people honestly call out to Him. I anointed the window-frame and door posts with oil and prayed (out loud, for both Willow & her mother's benefit) for safety and peace in that room.
Willow was dating a Christian guy -- ironically, he was interested in her because she was so wild, and he was trying to distance himself from his mother's faith. Willow liked her boyfriend's mom, and would sometimes accompany her to city-wide Christian events. My wife & I were able to pray for her numerous times in those settings. Willow eventually decided to be a follower of Jesus, dumped her boyfriend, but kept up a great relationship with his mom, who took her under her wing.
Two years later, Willow heard that we were moving to Winnipeg, and called me to go out for a cup of coffee, just for old times. During our conversation, she asked me, "What's changed about me? Can you notice anything different since I became a Christian?"
I thought about it for a moment, and then replied, "When I first met you, you would laugh and smile a lot, but your eyes never changed. It was like your soul was numb. But now, your eyes smile."
Willow sat up straight and laughed out loud. "That's exactly what it felt like! But now I feel so -- I don't know -- alive!"
She leans back into her seat in the restaurant, looking out the window at the ocean and the mountains in the distance.
"My eyes smile," she muses. "I like that."
posted by Robbymac at
1:53 PM
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