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Valerie now volunteers in Circle Urban's Food Pantry Valerie with her new "mother" in the Lord and mentor, Alicia

He Came to Seek & Save the Lost

Have you ever felt that you had no one to turn to; no one who cared what you did or what happened to you; believed that things were so bad that there wasn’t any point in going on living? Two days before Valerie stopped in at Circle Urban’s reception room she had reached the conclusion that taking her life was the best option.  Only, even though she had a knife and was trying to cut her wrists, she couldn’t break the skin.

Let me back-track a bit and give you some background.  Valerie is the youngest of four girls, born to a drug-addicted, prostitute mother.  When she was quite young, they were taken away from her mom and placed in foster-care with her aunt.  Things went along fine for a while and over time the two oldest sisters moved out.  Then one day as she was playing on the steps with her cousin, she heard her sister Shanise say to auntie’s husband “I’m telling auntie what you did!”  His reply was “don’t tell and I’ll take you to the store and get you whatever you want”.  Unfortunately, you can most likely imagine what was happening.

Valerie and her sister were moved to her great-aunt’s care where the situation wasn’t much better. The great-aunt’s son was mean and violent.  Valerie didn’t call it physical abuse; she just said he took out his meanness and anger on them.  He eventually moved out and things were better until Tyrone, one of her male cousins, came to live with them when he was released from jail.  The great-aunt should never have allowed him to move into the house with two young girls since he was a sex offender.  It wasn’t long before Tyrone was kicked out for “giving Shanise something”, and maybe getting her pregnant.

The outcome was that Valerie was the only one left to live with her great-aunt.  When she was fourteen, and a freshman in high school, her great-aunt became sick.  Between her age, the sickness, and the medications, Aunt Mary slept most of the time.  Valerie was on her own and came and went as she pleased.  She got into some serious drinking and would have washed out of high school if she hadn’t gotten into a relationship with a young man who caused her to “slow down” because he went to church and didn’t think all the drinking was right. 
She finished high school living with her boyfriend at his grandmother’s house.  She was very proud to have finished high school and gave tickets everyone in her family to attend her graduation.  Only almost no one came; just one sister and a friend.  Valerie was deeply hurt.

Valerie ended up breaking up with her boyfriend when he started seeing to another girl.  She went back to serious drinking and drugs.  She moved all over the Chicago area, staying at different times with a sister and various friends. When she ended up back in our neighborhood staying across the street from Circle, she just continued on her destructive way.  Valerie says that “most nights after work we’d go to clubs. I’d be so drugged up drivin’ I should have been dead”.

Her roommate kicked her out of the apartment because she was coming home every night so messed up she would be acting crazy.  Valerie realized her life was a mess and she couldn’t see a way out.  That brings us back to the beginning of this story.

Two days after her attempt to take her life, Valerie was walking past Circle and found herself walking through our doors. She says, “I don’t know why I came in, I just found myself inside wondering why I was here.”  When asked, she told the receptionist she wanted to volunteer.  But, when asked a couple more questions, she began crying.  The receptionist said “you need to talk to someone” and she called Alicia, a Circle staff member.

Alicia took time to talk with Valerie and they agreed to begin a mentoring relationship.  Having a daughter of about the same age, Alicia has been able to blend the needed spiritual input with some good parenting.  Within a few weeks of beginning their relationship, Valerie decided to again commit her life to the Lord.

In a written prayer Valerie expressed “God I love you, I know I don’t say it a lot, but I do and thanks once again for my new family…Thanks for not letting me go down that path of my mother and I’m sorry for all the mean and hateful things I said about my mother…Thanks for sending me to Alicia because I know it was you, thanks for the patience you have gave me over these few days not getting angry like I use to, thanks for life, I love you.”

Valerie didn’t come into Circle Urban because of a program that we offer.  She didn’t go through a conscious process of deciding to fix her life.  But, God did use His people at Circle Urban to reach one of His lost sheep.

It is an affirming blessing when we realize that God has set us on the corner of Central & Washington to be a light in a dark place and to convey His hope, healing and love to the lost in our community.