Welcome to the Road of Life With No Exits

For the next several weeks, I will be utilizing the chapters of a book called Give Life that was published by Youth For Christ USA several years ago. It chronicles a bit of our journey in this incredible and wonderful 72-year-old mission…

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

In a small Oregon community a 13-year-old girl by the name of “E” recoils from the impact of years of unhealthy relationships in her life.  Unable to process her feelings, she sinks deeper into disappointment and abandonment.

Two weeks after her 14th birthday, E gives birth to a little boy. 

Through the lens of statistics, the die is cast.  Game over.  Welcome to the road of life with no exits.

Predictions become reality.  E is kicked out of her home, baby in tow.  She floats in and out of homes.  With each new couch she sleeps on her dignity wanes, to say nothing of her prospects for a future.

But God. 

God extends a message of hope through a young woman in our mission. E was no longer alone.

“God has not written you off.”  “God does not look at statistics.” 

This was not a make over or a do over… it was a transformation.

The scandal of grace is that broken, desperately alone 14-year-olds with infants in arms are invited to embrace “new.”

E said yes to Jesus. 

When she uttered the word “yes,” her world didn’t change, but her heart did, her prospects did, her story did.

Mercy and hope and love washed over her.

There was no cosmic eraser, just the power of redemption.  

The old was gone.  The new had come.

New. 

Extravagant.  Wildly undeserved.

In rural Oregon and in every repentant heart where Jesus is embraced.

The old is gone.