Until The End

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

This may be an unfortunate truth, but there are very few people who will stay with you through the absolute worse of times. Many will call you friend or lover, but when your life is at its worse, and the rest of the world has turned against you, even those who profess to be at your side no matter what will leave. It's a fact of life that has been and still is reality.

At our church's annual luau a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet a few of the youth who came to help. These youth were part of a program that helped them to get out of the gang life they found themselves in. Adult Friends for Youth (AFY), the organization which runs this program, doesn't make it a goal to remove a person from gangs but rather to change the mentality of the entire gang the person is in.

As I met these youth I heard stories of being from a different culture and having a difficult time adapting to school and community life. They were belittled by family, teachers, coaches, and other adults who these youth thought were supposed to help them be better people. Instead of feeling better about themselves they began to believe they had no place in society.

Because relationship in community is a very important part of a youth's self-identification process, these young people seek acceptance from whichever source they can get it. Unfortunately they found this acceptance from people who live on the streets and use violence as a way to get respect.

However, as these young people told me, when life really got tough, when they needed help because they had been arrested or worse, their friends were nowhere to be found. Once again they were abandoned by the ones they thought were supposed to help them no matter what.

Today's Psalm reminds us that there has always been someone willing and able to be our true friend. We are reminded that there is someone who knows us so well that no matter what we do with our life the love never stops.

The youth in AFY's program are building new relationships. These new relationships are based in unconditional acceptance and trust. Through these relationships they are finding their way out of a life of violence and crime. All of this is possible because they've traveled a journey in search of acceptance for the people they are; the same kind of love God has for all of us.