Sharne (Part two)

If you haven't read part one I was faced with a rather unpleasant decision...

Of course I gave him a hug, and it wasn't a really nice hug for me, he turned it into a bear hug (he is not little) and I felt his skin peal away from my shirt as we parted... not real nice.

So his pants are on backwards and we are looking at each other and I said to him "so I guess you aren't coming tonight then?" (We had a policy at this group that no matter what you had done in between times you were still welcome to come along to the group). Sharne says to me "yeah, I'll come just give me a couple of minutes man".

I am thinking, what about the girl in the bedroom?

He goes off to the bedroom and comes back in a couple of minutes fully dressed with all items of clothing now correctly positioned. The girl is with him (about 16 years old at a guess) and he simply gives her four dollars and tells her the bus will be there in a few minutes!

I am both horrified and gob-smacked at this and I feebly try to have an unsuccesful conversation and all I wanted to do was to help her feel valued again, I am pretty sure I failed! Monumentally! I offered her a ride homw, which she refused and Sharne said, Nah, she wil be alright! And that was that.

Wth a pit in my stomach Sharne and I left, and the girl walked down the drive to the bus-stop. Sharne was worried because he had nothing to contribute to the shared feed we have, I said I had plenty.


The evening after that went as planned and just like usual. We played basketball and had a feed and hung out, there was about 15 of us and we just had a good time. Sharne and I had a couple of conversations, nothing deep but at least some acknowledgement from him that all was not well.

Toward the end of the evening we sat down to read some Scripture. That is what we do, we simply read a decent sized passage of Scripture together and leave it open for anyone to talk about it, either to the group or later to each other.

That night we read the 'lost stories' (Luke 15) Lost sheep, lost coin and lost son.

As I am reading the story of the lost Son, and I am reading about the Son's return to his family, to his father, I look at Sharne and his face simply drops. I had no idea that the story from Luke was hitting directly at Sharnes own life. Me, the bible guy, didn't even make the connection, but Sharne did, Sharne showed me the reality of that story. It was amazing to watch him hooked into Scripture as it spoke directly to the reality of his life.

The group's philoosophy of 'it doesn't matter what you have done between times, you are always welcome back' was at the heart of his experience. The hug I gave him was at the heart of his story. The women, the drugs, the drunkenness it was all there. The feed we had together or the banquet in the story! The experience for me was surreal, for the first time in my life as I read that passage I actually felt more like the father than the son!

Like I said at the beginning of the first part of this story, to the best of my knowledge Sharne has never made a faith commitment to following Jesus. However, he has connected with the Story of the grace of Jesus Christ in a menaingful way and has even experienced something of that grace through the group of guys who accepted him 'no matter what goes on between times'. How can we do more than that.

I remeber some time latter driving in my van reflecting on the story of Sharne and realising that he was still coming less and less to the group. I remember yelling to God at the top of my lungs while driving along Donbuck road "God!, I am doing my part when are you going to start doing yours" As I cried and prayed I repented also.


Today my prayer is...

God, you have done your amazing part, you are our Father, the ultimate Father. You continue to do your part and it is to your inceredible will that we submit ourselves as we constantly struggle and fail to work with young people. We delight with you in the responses to your grace and we cannot even begin to imagine how you hurt when people deny you. Lord, thankyou for a little taste of that denial, but thankyou also for shading me from the full force of pain that you must feel everytime someone denies your cross. We repent of our second-guessing of you Lord. Amen.