Jessica’s mother had a great impact on her life, raising Jessica as a single parent and working full-time. Jessica has never known her father. When her mother passed away, Jessica was bounced from home to home between unstable family members who were only interested in getting money to take care of Jessica. Jessica eventually ended up moving in with an older brother and sister-in-law where they have struggled to make ends meat and pay bills on time.

Despite the losses, changes, and hardships over the past year and a half, Jessica has been determined to have good attendance and is succeeding in her Magnet program at her IPS high school. Jessica’s dream is to go to college for culinary arts, and someday open her own restaurant, or to own a bakery and make birthday and wedding cakes. To keep her mother’s legacy alive, she wants to name her restaurant or bakery after her mother.

Dear friend,

I see the sadness you feel today. I am sad with you. Over time, you have learned to either ignore your feelings or use them to manipulate others to fill the void inside you. You have walked these noisy streets each day, looking for your fix of a good smoke or a good laugh or a man to take you in tonight. You exploit and you cut to take away the pain for just one moment. You ashamedly share that you have prostituted in exchange for a meal.

The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land. He will strengthen your frame. (v.11)

You were an adopted child. You were gang-raped at age 12. You longed for your father to give you the time of day. You were raised by treatment centers and fed high doses of ever-changing medications. You live on a three-week cycle, I have come to see. Every three weeks, you grow empty inside and you begin yet another search for that which will fill your hungry heart.

You will be a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. (v.11)

You are resilient, friend. You obtained your GED despite only completing the 9^th grade. You are very bright and intuitive. You like to help your friends and give back. You are learning how to love God. You cry because you miss your mother. You honestly search for a more full life than life on the streets.

Don’t give up.

And God has not forgotten you. Stay with Him and look to Him.

You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. (v. 12)

From Isaiah 58: 11-12

stemming from a poor relationship with his father and a very strained one with his mother. It was not odd for his mom’s boyfriend to lay his hands on Gary. He went to Job Corps after many strings were pulled to get him there. His anger got the best of him as he punched another student in the nose his second day there. He was quickly shown the door.

 Back home, where he had no home, he tried to stay in school. I remember taking him in to enroll & get books because there was no one else to do it. He ended up staying with a classmate and his dad, who drank way too much and suffered from PTSD from the first Gulf War. The house was a wreck, not very clean & sported a huge hole in the floor with stairs to the basement. It was a far cry from being up to code. Sometimes there was food in the house. Sometimes there wasn’t. I made fairly regular trips with groceries. It was inadequate yet did provide a broken form of stability.

 Then there was the traumatic event in the neighborhood. Gary called me saying someone he knew had been shot & killed in the street. He was close by when it all went down. He knew who the shooter was. Would he come after Gary? He was sad and scared. His poor excuse for stability had been shaken. A house on a very weak foundation had been hit by a tornado. Another tornado was on its way.

 Shortly after these events, Gary came “home” after school to find a note on the door from his classmate’s father saying he was sorry but he had to leave town and get away from everything. He called me, I came over and called the police to report Gary as abandoned-again. Youth Emergency Services showed up and took him to the Children’s Guardian Home. I made calls necessary to arrange to get Gary’s belongings locked in the house. I also picked up mail for him for a few weeks.

 He ended up at a place called Resource Inc. Gary was not fond of this place at first, but it proved to be a place where he would work through a lot of his anger, do school work and join the army. I would pick him up every Saturday, taking advantage of his time allowed to leave, & we would go to the library so he could hop on to the internet and check out military books. He was reading three to four books a week. We would eat, talk about the military which he researched and thought about extensively. we talked about God and He was becoming more and more real to Gary.

 After a rocky start at Resource, he fulfilled his requirements and his DCS worker hooked him up with the Scattered Sights program. They helped him get his first apartment. What an incredibly happy day it was helping Gary move in. His face showed a mix of happiness and anxiety as if he was thinking, “This is great! What do I do?” But with more positive support than ever, he did extremely well living on his own. There was still darkness to battle like the time his father stole money from him to support his unhealthy habits. But Gary shined through it leaning on his support system he now had in place. He kept jobs, paid bills and eventually earned his GED through the army.

 Today Gary is stable, working and keeping in touch.