*This is an anonymous communication between a volunteer and a mentee.
Dear Mentee,
Last night, you told me that recent events have made you feel like you might be just giving up. “Giving up” doesn’t sound like a very good thing to do, but sometimes it can simply mean another way of “letting go” of something that has had enough time with you and now just needs to be discarded. Being able to let go would be a signal to you that you are ready to set out in new directions. Maybe this could be one of those Ralph Waldo Emerson moments in your life when you decide to take another opportunity to enjoy “the freedom to learn how [you] ought to live so that [you] can fulfill [your] potential” in ways you hadn’t thought of before ~ make new choices.
Mentee, you are open with and bold in your opinions, but you also keep a lot of things locked inside. You are tough, loyal, kind, and thoughtful all at the same time. You find it difficult when people ask you why you don’t just “get over it” or “let it go”. I’m sure that both the passage of time and your forgiveness of those who have hurt you in the past are important parts of the answer. In the meantime, you know that as difficult as the struggle is, growing in ways that will prepare you for fulfilling your potential is also part of the answer. Finishing school is one fine example. Setting goals like we’ve agreed to do and share with each other at the end of the first week in January is another way.
I am really proud of you for moving ahead by paying attention to what will benefit you in the long run. I respect you, and I respect your initiative and your willingness to not back off and run away from the hurdles that are positioned in front of you. There are several people in your life who want to encourage you and cheer you on. Often it is hard to know how to lift another’s spirits even when one wants to so much. It may be even harder to be cheered on when you are suffering so deep inside. Even though others don’t seem like they get it, it is not that they don’t want to and it’s not that they wouldn’t carry your burden if it were possible. But unlike Christ crucified, human beings aren’t made to fully understand suffering nor even how to love selflessly. We need each other, yet we hold back from each other. Instead of giving our hearts fully, even to those we love, we are afraid. Even when we think we want to, we are never quite able to really put ourselves in the place of each other… because of past failures, we feel a certain lack of faith that it is even possible. What follows, I think, is that instead of giving even more of ourselves, we feel that we need to protect ourselves from that which we think in the short run can’t give us pleasure or make us happy… We want control, but the kind of control that we desire is never guaranteed.
Shortly after we first met, you asked me if I believed you when you said that you were innocent of the legal charges that led to your incarceration. At that time, I told you that I did not want to risk the possibility of basing our new mentor-mentee relationship on something other than the Truth. I feared that if I allowed myself to believe that you were telling the entire truth and yet you knew inside that it wasn’t the truth, our relationship would be based on a lie. I knew that I had no way of knowing the absolute truth and yet the truth seemed to me to be all we had that we could really depend on.
I want you to know, Mentee, that over the past year as I have come to better know your character and your heart, I believe you. I have read the trial-court and appeals-court transcripts, and I do not believe you were involved in the activity for which you were charged. That you are not willing to admit to a lie just to save your own self places you in deep conflict. Unfortunately, admitting to something you did not do is made to sound like it would make your life easier because admitting your guilt, whether true or not, would be more pleasing to a society which has already made up its mind not to change its mind. Your determination to remain true to yourself by sticking to the truth, especially at such a very high cost, is extremely painful to you and your suffering is unimaginable to me and to others who love you. I wish that we could somehow understand more and know how to take the burden from your heart ~ carry it for you. There is only One who can. You know that. Your relationship with Him, I believe, is the only relationship that will be able to ease your frustration, confusion, and the pain that never seems to go away. As you said at Starbucks this morning in front of a group of mature Christian men, it is the Word that we take to our individual hearts that matter. You said to me that if His words speak to me, then I should take them and run. God is not little nor incapable of anything. Mentee, the time WILL come when your pain will turn to inner strength.
You may not realize it, but I believe that process is already underway. When I am with you, I see it and I hear it. You already have all that is needed. In His time, I am certain that the clouds will clear and that your path will be made more certain. You must, as I have already been witnessing, continue to push on in good health, responsibly, and openly to what waits for you in your future. Again, “enjoy the freedom to learn how [you] ought to live so that [you] can fulfill [your] potential”.
You are surrounded by a number of people who love you very much and will be there for you because of the blessing you’re to them. These are real people in your life. I can even name some of them! And I am one of them. But, human beings are fickle. We expect each other to watch each others’ backs. It seems that we are always expecting something in return for what we give… sort of like we think we are making selfless sacrifices, but at the same time are interested in the aspect of payback. I guess at least we are trying to learn how to make it all work right. By our nature, we continue to fall short.
Christ has shown us how He loves us. He gives His love and doesn’t force us to love Him in return. He has graced us with the freedom to make our own choices as to how we live, the freedom or “right to learn how we ought to live so that we can fulfill our potential”. He has asked us to try to love each other in the same unselfish way He loves us. We often fail, but once again, that brings us back to the importance of not being willing to give in to giving up in the way that means quitting. Mentee, in closing I just want to say that I hope and pray that we have many more years, hopefully eternity, together in Him. I love you, my friend.
Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration Region Three Mentor
Major W. Harris, Jr., is a Mentor Program Coordinator – Region 3, Department of Social & Health Services, Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration, Vancouver. Mr. Harris can be reached at (360) 993-7954 or harrimw@dshs.wa.gov.
Perfect answer! That really gets to the heart of it!