You know, I’ve learned so much in these 15 years of working with women saying they want recovery. That is NOT the same as wanting to transform one’s life. If one can’t clearly state that she’s had enough of the old way and knows that she’s had enough of the merry go round of misery, then I’m not really going to be able to help. I’m not dishing out bandaids. Healing is the work we help facilitate and it is not fast and it is not easy.
It’s boot camp and our volunteers are the training officers. It’s spring training and our team members are the coaches. Put on the big girl pants and the armor and get ready to work. No nursery thumb sucking and whining. If you don’t want to change, don’t come here.
No one here is your mother- figure, your best friend or your savior. We are your mentors, your teachers, your iron-sharpening-iron, your “grits” (Girlfriends Rising In The Spirit), your Titus 2 Sisters in Christ, your accountability partners, your mutual Salt spreaders and Light bearers in a world that is dark and rotten. We aren’t perfect, nor are you. But we are happy to have you here and we’ll all work on this thing called Christ-following together.
And if you are going to run, run far and fast, because we don’t want you lingering around dragging anyone else down who is here to do the burning work God has put in her heart to refine her for the purpose she was created to do. Life is too short and kingdom work is too important to waste time trying to convince someone that she has a purpose, too. If you can’t grasp it, this isn’t your time and this isn’t your place. God will deal with you later. You can trust that. I certainly do.
No more women under 30. They have not skidded on the asphalt enough to even know what they don’t know. And they aren’t going to learn anything except the hard way. I’ve said it before and every time I make an exception, I regret it. God has told me in years past not to make hard and fast rules in screening the applicants, but I have too little help in the ministry now and I’m getting too old to deal with the young ones under 30 who aren’t truly broken and are just looking for a mother to kiss their boo-boos and make everything magically right and go on with their warped happily-ever-after thinking. This is war and they don’t even know they are the battleground.
We get most of our ladies at Titus 2 by personal referral now, from people who have personal knowledge or experience with the work we do….. not from the jail, not from agencies, not from courts. They have known someone whose life has been changed by the Lord through the discipleship, mentoring, Christian education, and recovery training that we offer. And that seems to work far better.