looking for love in all the wrong places

It always sends a deep hollow sorrow through my chest to know someone is playing a part in something beyond them...letting go of something before they even knew they had it...taking on something before they even knew it was there...

It really breaks my heart to hear how much random sex kids around here are having.

The ones I work with, they're always asking about Kalen being straightedge or being roommates with his girlfriend and about my past and present as well. It makes me sad to see the guarded disbelief on their faces when I tell them I don't sleep around, like I'm going to go "naaah just kidding! PFFF!" three seconds later. It hurts my heart to hear the things they say about each other and themselves.

I wish they knew.
I wish they knew they were loved beyond that. I wish they knew they could love beyond that.

I have a forever fight inside me, never quite sure who wins out...everyone talks (in this therapeutic, support-group saturated society...in the ministry infected by it..) about this "integrity" where you have to be an expert before anyone hears you out on something. eg: "if you're going to be a youth pastor and tell people 'how to raise their kids' then you better have kids before you start saying that stuff." I don't know. I think that's kinda bogus.

I am drawn back to the story of the woman at the well on a pretty regular basis. I love that story. I love figuring it out, finding new aspects of what went down there, learning beyond the Sunday School "living water" bit. Honestly, I just love how Christ walked straight into that encounter and loved her. No small talk, no bullshit, no judging, no avoiding, no polite overlooking, no minding-his-own-business. He just showed up, loved her, showed her the Truth, and gave her a new option.

I adore and dread this, because I want to be the kind of person who can show up and love you. Enough to let God show you the Truth and call you out of the shit you've unwittingly immersed yourself in. And, I mean, obviously I'm not Jesus Christ, so I don't exactly have the identical holy chutzpah with which to stroll up to strangers and exhort them...but, uh, isn't there a part in the bible where he passes this kind of thing on to us and oh I don't know...says we'll do even greater things? (see: John 14)

So shouldn't I maybe have the nerve to wish for an encounter? For the fifteen year old girl who just slept with her tenth guy--a friend of my brother's to boot--who's the "gossip of the night" among her "friends" at work to be the last one to leave tonight when I'm closing up? For the love to ask "what are you doing, little one?" and to tell her, "you don't have to.. you don't have to."

Oh God.