Speech Given for Write For Life

With the hopes that we could create a better future for kids that have suffered because of suicide, abuse and rape we created a Write For Life. Here we are now, our first six weeks completed. Our first set of children returning to their normal life with a different perspective of life and God then what they had when they first came to us. With Write For Life we try to make a permenent differnce in these lives.

All of us with the program have been in the places of the children at one time. We know how it feels to be them. To be in that place is horrific enough, but to not have someone to talk to, or feel like you have no one you can trust, that's even worse. We became those people. We became the ones that they learned to trust. The ones they can talk to.

Everything that has happened in this past six weeks has changed not only Heather, Jakob, Emma, Anthony, Brittany, Katey, and Brandon; but it has also changed Sarah, Philip, and I. As the staff for Write For Life we stand here and make a promise to every child in need of a trustworthy friend, guidence, and a place to come when things get hard, that we will always be here and willing to help in any way we can.

For us this has become more than a job, this has becaome a way of life. We believe that it's kids like these that will changed our futures which is reason enough for us to opn our hearts to these kids.

This was just my portion. There were also Sarah's and Philip's.

I Need An Answer

The faith I have in myself is fading. I thought I was making a difference in these kids' lives. I believed I could be the Superman I wished I'd had in my life so dearly. Someone who could be there to protect them, to show them that there is more to this life than the pain they felt. More than just the horrors they faced. The ones that changed them. Now I am not so sure. I've fought all my life to be seen in this world, to be noticed. I thought this was it. I guess it's not. To tell you the truth, I was doing this for selfish reasons. I needed something to hold on to, since what happened. I faced the demons in my life, only for them to come back now and taunt me.

Why the change of heart you ask? Her name is Heather. A beautiful ten year old girl whom I'd gotten the chance to work with. Her story is a lot like mine, it's why I asked to take on her assignment. At nine years old we had both faced a similar challenge. Watching those we loved commit suicide. When I saw Heather, it reminded me of what I'd went through. The pain is all too much rememberable. The tears I'd shed, the constant ache of feeling that it was my fault for my mother's leaving. I didn't want her to spend years feeling the way I had. I didn't want her to shut out the world like I did. Just going through life's motions to satisfy everyone else. I wanted it to be different for her.

I spent the next two months with Heather, giving her every possible way of reaching me in case she needed to talk, and we spent every Saturday and Wednesday doing something new. We talked about everything, my past, hers, school, life, religion. For every question she had I believed I had an answer. It was last night I found I did not.

What do you tell a ten year old when she demands to know why God is punishing her? I simply told her that he wasn't, that there was a reason for everything and she would find it soon. She shook her head and asked why I was defending him. The one who had abandoned us when we needed him. Why defend the one who took away my mother? Why protect him if all he could do was cause us hurt, and to make us cry? I found myself speechless. I had never blamed God for what had happened, but she did. Nothing I said changed her mind. She couldn't see that good would come from this because she was so focused on the bad.

I thought I had been making a difference, but I'm not. I have prayed for an answer, but have yet to find one and I believe maybe I'm not ready to take on this responsibility as I thought I was. As selfish as it is I don't want to give it up. I'm not sure why, but something tells me that if I give up now she will never see the reason God let her go through this. It isn't because he abandoned her. It was because he loved her and he wanted her to grow from this. The reason I am who I am today is because of the things I've went through.

So what am I to do? Tho I am trying I can't find a way out of this dilemma. If I continue I might just push her away, but I can't give up. Right now my head is so fogged up with all that is going on. Recently it seems like all I can do is think about what has happened to me these past few years. I get frustrated with myself that I too want to blame God, but then I straighten myself back out best I can remembering that it has brought me here. Even now I am at a very tender moment in my life. It is going to be one year the eighteenth that one of my closet friends committed suicide. Along with that I am trying to help my friend's father get through this as well. I only pray that I can do this without losing what is left of my faith. I think this time I might have overdone it. I've tried too hard to be Superman, cause even Superman has his weaknesses. I tried to pretend that I didn't, now I'm falling victim to it. My past, my weakness.
~Micheala~