You’re four years old and you go out to play with a friend. You’re playing with toy guns and pretend to be in one of the gangs you hear about every day. You find a real gun under a bridge. You don’t know it, but it’s loaded. You fire it the way you would fire your toy gun, only something comes out and hits the friend you were playing with.
You’re grown and walking around the neighborhood you grew up in with your brother. Someone stops you, shoots your brother, kills him and points the gun at you. He pulls the trigger but nothing happens. Your life has been spared, your brother is gone and you’re told to run. So you grab your brother’s limp, bleeding body and you run.
You’ve been in a gang for years and find yourself at the top. You’re the one that gives the orders – to kill or not to kill? Can we stop beating him or should we keep on? His ribs are broken. Can we stop?
You have a fiance and a baby girl but you can not quit the addiction that pulls at you and calls out to you every moment of every day. You know you’re letting them down but you can’t stop.
You’re seven years old and you’re walking home from school. Caught in the crossfire of one of the gang fights you’ve seen so many times. Wrong place at the wrong time, wrong family, wrong circumstances. Other people’s choices have decided your fate.
You’re a teenager and you don’t belong. Your family has fallen apart. Your mom is addicted and your dad is gone. You want to belong and you want to be loved. The people in the gangs have purpose and they belong. That’s better than where you are now, right?
You’re thirteen and you start seeing an older guy. He says he’s going to leave you if you won’t let him come over and stay in your bed. You’re pregnant and you find out the guy you trusted is a gangster. He’s gone.
You’re stuck in the gang and are now called “the shooter.” You have to do what they say if you want to live. You have to because the people you are told to shoot are your enemies. They are your enemies… but they are just like you.
You want to stop. But you can’t.
You want to change. But you’re stuck.
You want to have hope. But it’s gone.
You want to come out. But you’re in too deep.
I wish I could say that these stories are made up. That I haven’t met these people or heard the stories come from their mouths. I wish.
But I can’t say that. They are true and the people are real.
Their hurts are real and the things they have gone through have left their marks. They’ve spent their lives filling the scars with drugs, sex and alcohol because those are the only things that numb the pain, even if it’s only for a moment.
They are drowning and reaching and fighting and hurting.
I can’t say they aren’t real.
What I can say is that there is a Man who drew a line in the sand for these people. He drew a line that brought justice and hope, love and forgiveness.
There is a Man who’s Father is reaching down from on high, waiting to take hold so He can draw them out of the water they’re drowning in.
I feel helpless as I sit in the boat with the Man and call out into the water. I know they can’t hear me because they are fighting and completely submerged, trying to come up. Trying to get air. Trying to breathe. All I can do is ask the Man to reach farther, to show His hand and make sure they see the freedom He holds.
I know they will grab His hand. I know they will.
