Lunching at Wendys, on my way to work, I was approached by a young woman who had been a regular passenger on my bus, but like so many simply vanished one day without a word. A friend of a friend, I had intermittently followed her experiences for several years and then simply lost track.

After some initial small talk, I eventually asked more directly, “So how are things for you, really?”

What unfolded was a story of how she had just returned from having wrongly followed her birth family to Bakersfield California. Her family, as she described it, included 12 people living in a small house together. She was drawing the only income, a disability assistance payment for lupus. She had had to leave Grand Junction before completing her GED and while she was away had become too old for the normal track.

“Bakersfield was toxic for me,” she revealed, “My parents were on drugs and things were so crazy I finally had to leave.” She had summoned the courage to break away and return to Grand Junction where she was temporarily living with friends. She had been able to return to her old job and was researching a way to complete her education in order to begin again.

It is easy to come up with solutions for other people’s lives that, in retrospect, would have saved them the grief they have had to bear. We, however, do not walk in their shoes nor are we bound by the heart ties that they must find a way to sever.

Listening to folks, one becomes aware that some of the ruts on our individual journeys are deeper than others and require signigicant courage to breal free.

Your prayers for her continued strength are solicited with love and light light for unfolding hope.

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