Micha
At YFC Spokane, we see a diverse group of kids come through our building each month. Hundreds of students, each with their own story to share. Many of these stories are heartbreaking, and most of them are riddled with neglect or abuse of some sort. Sometimes, however, a story reaches out and uniquely touches you, and you find yourself caring deeply for someone from the very start of first meeting them. For me, that is Micha.
Micha is a 16-year-old high school student with whom I have been building a relationship for the past 8 months. I remember meeting him for the first time: a tall, skinny kid with brown, curly hair and deep-set, tired eyes. I immediately felt a weight of deep loneliness in those eyes. His story is one of abandonment, abuse, neglect, drug use, mental illness, and homelessness. Conversations with Micha felt like swimming against a riptide. I felt the depth of his hurt and a longing for safety. But I also felt a fierce independence that he had developed to keep people just far enough away that he was protected from them truly understanding him. From the very start, he built walls so thick with lies and anger that it often felt impossible even to have basic conversations with him.
It is challenging to see hope for a person who lacks the knowledge or context to understand what hope feels like. To be made new, to experience beauty in the things around you — these things come through a changing of the heart. This is something that I have come to realize I have absolutely no control over. So this was my prayer for Micha: “Lord help him to see your beauty in his life”. By all accounts, an absurd thing to pray over someone who likely experiences so little in the way of practical beauty. That was my prayer, nonetheless. I knew (and continue to learn) that I have the gift and ability to share the love of Jesus with someone, but only He has the power to change a heart.
That has been my simple prayer for Micha over the past months. Through little jokes shared with him. Through fits of anger as he is cussing me out. Through wrapping infected cuts on his feet. Through conversations where he asks if he can only “just come and live with me”. And it was my prayer for him that I spoke aloud in our little office as I held two of his fingers that he stuck out to me when I asked to hold his hand as I prayed.
Micha’s story is still unfolding, as is the case with all of the kids we see. However, that is one of the most encouraging aspects of this ministry. When leaving last Thursday, Micha made sure to go around and give each of our staff a hug before he left. It is these quiet moments that point to a greater work being done in his heart. It is in a gentle conversation on a swing when he says, “I guess you’re my family,” after I told him that I love and care about him. It is the moments on our little bike rides that I can see God beginning to warm his heart to the Idea that beauty exists.
Micha is very likely walking the streets of Downtown Spokane as I write this. That is why I am so encouraged when, on his walk, he chooses to come here, where I can share with him the beauty that I know to be the Love of Jesus.