alovelikethis

I've never known a love like this.                
I've never known heartache like this.
I've never been pushed, challenged, or lived like this.

Yes, I have loved.
Yes, I have had my heart ache.
Yes, I have been pushed, challenged, and alive.

But not like this.

         -                                                                                     

I wrote that in the notes of my phone in a parking lot a few weeks ago, one frigged night, after all the kids had gone home, and I was alone.

That was the day I told the middle schoolers I had accepted a position at EYF's new High School Resource center, College Street, in Mechanicsville. 

The offer came just a day after we had lost one of our high schoolers in a random drive by. There was no way I could handle whatever it was they wanted me to do with the High Schoolers. Not before his death, and certainly not after. Plus there was no way I could leave the middle schoolers. 

So I said no. 

Several calls, texts, and conversations later, with the people that do everything in there power to encourage me to pray, and make my own decisions based off of what God says, not Chloe, or the rest of the world (darn them.) I was asked again later that week by two different people if I would take this on. 

Removing my selfish desires, anxieties about how the high schoolers wouldn't like me, and having spent all of Christmas break in prayer about it, feeling as though this was an opportunity you don't pass on.

So I said yes. 

After numerous pep talks, and about two break downs, prepping the building, and training (tutors, volunteers, and ourselves) what this should look like on a daily basis, we are here. Working out the kinks. Recruiting kids. Small victories, major victories, and a couple failures... oh and more prayer. 

First week is in the record books, and I can't wait to see what God has in store for the next 3 months, and beyond, with this site, and these kids. 

Their stories have begun to be written on my heart and soul. 
Their stories are worthy, bold, dark, messy, vibrant, beautiful, violent, heavy, inspiring, foreign, rhythmic. 
The words I wrote then, are still breathing today.

I've never known a love like this.                
I've never known heartache like this.
I've never been pushed, challenged, or lived like this.

Yes, I have loved.
Yes, I have had my heart ache.
Yes, I have been pushed, challenged, and alive.

But not like this.