We never know whose life we are going to impact, and we never know whose life is going to impact ours. We never know the time or the place where one life may be transformed by another. Maybe it’s a story told, an experience shared, a lesson learned. We may not know, but God knows.
We were new to Grand Prairie, and I had a new position in Grand Prairie ISD. I was a counselor to pregnant/parenting teens which was funded by the government or taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars. To say I was welcome by faculty and staff wasn’t always the case. “We’re tired of those kinds of programs” was a normal comment. “They played with fire, and they got burned!” was another. “Now the government is making me pay for their mistakes out of my paycheck! That is not right!”
I didn’t like that part either, but I knew God called me to help these young girls and boys.
The day I met LaToya could have caused me to reconsider my job. She was fourteen, in the ninth grade and had two children when we first met. She was sullen, skeptical and didn’t want any part of me. We just sat playing stare-down, only she stared at the floor. I would venture a question; she might answer or she might ignore me with a bored sigh. This was the beginning of something – but I didn’t know what.
Several teachers said she wouldn’t make it. “Why are you wasting so much time with that girl?” one teacher countered. At the time I wasn’t sure I could give an answer. Something held me to this girl. The odds were against her: messy home life, she already had two kids not just one and a bad attitude! But that day I kept sitting there. We were alone in an empty Homemaking classroom. I had other students who were more than willing to have my help, but I kept sitting. She crossed her arms and attached her gaze permanently to the floor.
Just as I was almost ready to give up, I had another thought. It was like an information download occurred. And then a question. With much reverence and almost a whisper I finally asked, “How old were you the first time you were molested?”
For the first time her eyes darted upward, and her body tensed more than ever. My heart was racing. Carefully I reached across the table and placed my hand over hers. Again, I whispered the question. Teardrops began falling onto the table as her words cut through the silence. “No one has ever asked me that.”
Why did I? God ordered my steps that day because He had a plan for “that girl”.
Today, seventeen years later, I listened to her speak to a group of girls about the age she was when I met her. I could have told her story for her because I was there as she walked out the realities of her life and the consequences of her choices.
High school was hard for her; she continued to make poor choices. By the time she was a senior she was pregnant with the third baby. I was disappointed. I had put so much effort and love into her and I did not want to walk away and give up……on her. I couldn’t; I wouldn’t. That’s what everyone else had done. I knew God had His hand on her; I knew she would be a voice for others like her with similar backgrounds.
Because of her and the story I learned that day in that isolated homemaking room, I got permission to form a support group for pregnant and parenting teens. This only created more opposition. “Now they are getting out of class as if they don’t miss enough already,” was voiced often from my peers. But I was overwhelmed and couldn’t physically meet individually with each student. The support group allowed a safe place to share, grow, and connect to others with like needs. It was in that group these students formed friendships and held each other accountable for being in school. The numbers grew as those hidden within the ranks of “normal” students came with apprehension, breaking their silence and secrecy.
Out of that grew a speaking group to take their message into the middle schools to tell their stories to younger students. The impact was life changing for all of us. LaToya always spoke last. Her presence, her courage and her gift of speaking brought us all to the knees of our heart. Because of her third pregnancy and still making poor choices I had debated removing her from the group. But when she told younger kids to take a long, close look at her life and her choices, she then asked them to find someone to talk to…….like she did on that day in that homemaking room. “I’ve got some work to do,” she said, “ But I now have hope that eventually I will do better.”
She graduated and a year had passed when I got a phone call. “I understand your Jesus,” she laughed. “I asked Him into my heart! I’m saved!” She had called to let me know her life was changed.
Her life was now really beginning!
Eventually she enrolled in UTA and graduated with a bachelor’s degree and went on to earn a Masters Degree. She’ll finish her Doctorate Degree next year. And she’s written a book about her life and finding God.
Together we formed a support group for teen mothers who graduated high school. I did the job the school district hired me for: to help them graduate and get the skills to get a job. But in a smaller group setting in my home and with LaToya’s newfound faith, we could give them what they really needed: hope, love and an introduction to Jesus.
LaToya is now a Social Worker in the same school where I first met her. She is taking her story, her message of hope to her generation because she speaks the language of the heart they need to hear. She connects through the pain and hurt and directs them to hope. I saw it happen. I saw her life change. Now she is giving back.
Years ago, a teacher asked me why I was spending so much time with “that girl”. I didn’t know why. But the big picture isn’t mine to see and know. I only saw the girl in front of me that day and God knew the woman she could become.
LaToya gives me credit for her life today. I can’t take credit. Because of her I learned, I grew, and I stretched my own abilities and beliefs. I learned to trust in the waiting. We taught each other!
Now she is taking the message of hope and healing to her generation. And as I pray for her and listen like a proud mentor, I remember that day long ago and “that girl”. Now she’s God’s girl!
“For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for harm; to give you a future and a hope “ Jeremiah 29:11
