to write love on her arms

just a few minutes ago, i was flipping through the latest relevant magazine and i came across, in one of the first few pages, a story about the to write love on her arms tour thats been going on. i knew a little bit about what they were doing so i decided to read the story. from my understanding, what this tour was about was hope. showing people who may think about suicide, cutting, etc. that pain is real but there is hope. in the story, there was this girl who saw the show and later handed the group an envelope with a letter that starts with "five years of scars mark my arms and blood replaced the tears i was unable to cry." she left them her razorblade and ended with "thank you for loving the hopeless. thank you for loving me."

when i read that something came over me. i just cried. i think what got me were the last two sentences. i just sat there and cried. so much of the time i forget that im not the only one hurting in this world. other times i forget about america and only think about people in africa and i think they are the only ones hurting. but really, pain is everywhere. cutting and suicide are frighteningly real in our society. my own granddad who was a youth pastor for a time ended up taking his own life. i dont know the story very well because i dont think my mom likes talking about it, but its certainly close to home. my dad's mom came strikingly close to killing herself several times. my dad saved her life a couple of those times. my aunt tried to kill herself last year. my ex boyfriend said he tried to kill himself when we broke up last year as well. im sure you know people who have either succeeded or at least tried. maybe it's you.

i think it's amazing that there are people out there reaching out to those who are hurting and saying, look it's okay. i feel pain as you feel pain, i understand, and im going to love you. there are people who are choosing to love the ones who cant even love themselves. and thats what we all need. we need someone to tell us that we are loved. most of the time, people made us feel unloved, and that is why we are hurting. breakups, parents, friendships, disloyalty, whatever. theres generally someone telling us we are not worth it when we feel bad. well guess what, you are worth it, and if you were here with me right now i would shake you and repeat it until you believed me.

we live in such a crazy world. that song mad world by tears for fears is so on. life gets so monotonous and sometimes it takes a little tragedy to uproot our planted feet. that's no good, but it happens every single day. every single one of us have cried because we were sad, we have all been unloved in some way, we have all fallen short of some expectation. we are a broken people doing everything we can to put ourselves back together.

as christians, it is our duty first and foremost to reach out to people where they are hurting. to, not only address our wounds, but to hold theirs as well. it will be a perfect system when we can find a way to look inside one another rather than looking inside ourselves. there is a world out there shouting that you are not good enough. that you have to get plastic surgery, the right friends, and the right amount of money to be allowed to take part in our society. i think soon there will be a rising voice shouting much louder and saying "you have a purpose. you are loved. you belong. there is hope." we should all join and shout it together. we should all love unconditionally every single time to every single person. despite how hard it is, we have aid. we have scripture, one another, and a loving God ready to instill us with a passion for humanity. someday maybe christians will love as we should and every single person purged of love will come and find peace and hope and a place where they can belong. this is what we should be about. this should be our vision.