Johannah; more than a Bible and a thrift shop

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

So I choked up in our reflection group today. I did my best to fight back tears, but some kept flooding my eyes regardless of how hard I tried to hold in emotions due to the fact that there were simply too many. My heart was breaking again. I met a woman today with a story that seemed scripted with chaos and hurt, like God wouldn’t let her catch a break no matter how much she tried to escape from her past. Sure, she had made mistakes, but who doesn’t? But now, even if she wanted to change-even if she wanted a second chance- she was stuck. She worked at the House of Hope’s resale shop, a little building right across from where our group was staying and across the street from the actual house she had been living in. The House of Hope is technically a “recovery facility” that is “Faith Based, Bible Directed, and Christ Centered” with a vision statement being: “to see women who have been in bondage to drug and/or alcohol addiction set free from addiction and restored to self control, reconciled with family and able to function in society as a contributing member of their community.” It is a small “dorm” facility with a “family” lifestyle and a weekly schedule including spiritual development, daily group devotionals, Bible reading and quiet time alone with God, family meals 3 times per day with emphasis on healthy eating, exercise, house chores, one-on-one meetings with administrator, SAAFE House counselor, Christ centered 12 step meetings, emotional well-being classes, working the resale shop, and working at the local soup kitchen.

I thought it sounded like progress! Here I am, a sophomore social work major looking to work in a different type of treatment or recovery center because of my passion for people struggling with mental health issues such as depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide, and I’m presented with this concept of a “House of Hope” with a pamphlet that lays out the blueprint of an ideal program. Ironically though, after talking with the only woman currently in the program, Johannah, she seemed to be almost completely hopeless. She casually told her story to anyone who would ask, knowing she had nothing to lose and nothing else to be afraid of. To her, we’re just service-loving, bleeding-heart college students who had never experienced anything as real as prison or extreme poverty, so still thinking we can change the world. She’d never see us again, but maybe she was thankful to have new faces around. The thing about Johannah is that she has so much potential, but she just doesn’t know it. Johannah is beautiful, she works hard, has a five-year-old daughter that she talks about all the time, a great sense of humor, and an air of young rebellion and adventure still about her. Understandably, none of us students know her whole story; those of us who talked with her only got a few minutes at a time while we were sweeping, folding linens, or cleaning shelves in the resale shop. Yet we all got a chance to feel a bit of what she goes through on a daily basis. It makes me question so many things: this sickening cycle of poverty in America, grossly inhumane aspects of the criminal justice system that breaks apart families and ruins lives, the destruction of addiction, alcoholism, drug abuse, or domestic abuse that can take over homes, the inability of administrators, preachers, counselors, even AA/NA meeting leaders to connect with people who are hurting. The truth is people need other people. We don’t need others who think they know the right way to do things, the right things to believe. We don’t need others telling us what to give up and who to listen to. We don’t need to be isolated, abandoned, rejected, shamed, and stigmatized, treated like prisoners in our own bodies, let alone jailed to the system. What we need is a hope for the future, not a longing for the past. Instead of trying to stick to old books and rituals, why not try seeing people for who they are? Is it too much to ask for someone to listen to the person sitting across from them without analyzing things that aren’t even there? We need to open our eyes to the world, and, more importantly, the people, around us and try figuring this all out together. I’m not saying that I have all the answers; I’m simply questioning how to make things better. It’s stories like Johannah that get to me like hers did tonight. That kind of pain needs a little more than a Bible and a job at a thrift shop. That kind of pain needs love.