Assessment Of To Write Love On Her Arms Religion Essay

To Write Love on Her Arms ( TWLOHA ) is an American non-profit administration whose ends are to present hope and healing for immature people fighting with issues such as depression, self-harm, drug dependence and self-destruction. TWLOHA is non a squad of trained professionals or a counselling service. Rather, the administration works to seek and link the people covering with these problems to web sites, books, rehabilitation and intervention Centres, support groups and other resources.

To Write Love On Her Arms started merely with one immature adult male, Jamie Tworkowski, sharing the narrative of a miss named Renee Yohe on the societal networking website MySpace. Jamie chronicled the five yearss between when he met Renee, who was self-injuring, hooked to drugs and wrestling with whether she wanted to populate or non, and when she entered a intervention clinic. In add-on to the narrative ‘s promotion on MySpace, T-shirts were sold in Jamie and Renee ‘s hometown of Orlando, Florida, to fund her intervention plan.

However, through the community exposure of MySpace, ware and connexions with popular instrumentalists, To Write Love On Her Arms has grown to be now a planetary motion, based out of Florida, since its official origin in March 2006. 25 % of TWLOHA net incomes ( virtually all from ware ) go straight to set up recovery administrations such as Mercy Ministries, Teen Challenge and the National Hopeline Network ; and in Australia, Kids Help Line.

Although TWLOHA does non react to the demands of the materially hapless, I believe their doctrines and attitudes are shaped by an incredibly cognizant divinity and apprehension of civilization. Jamie is a Christian, but To Write Love on Her Arms is, by design, non a ‘Christian ministry ‘ . Initially it was officially set up under the umbrella of Fireproof Ministries, a Florida church administration ; nevertheless, several months on, TWLOHA was established as its ain non-profit administration. While TWLOHA is decidedly up-front and honest about the fact their hope is based in Jesus Christ, and connected with many churches, young person groups, Christian schools and other Christian administrations, they are besides determined to be inclusive. The administration ‘s aid is offered to all people, with no duty ; and the administrations that TWLOHA financially supports are non entirely Christian ministries.

The cardinal encouragements of To Write Love on Her Weaponries to immature people is, foremost, to seek aid for their jobs ; and so, as an of import preventive construction, to hold honest conversations about the issues of self-harm, dependence, depression and self-destruction, and besides to guarantee that they are populating in community.

I believe these three countries show a acute consciousness of TWLOHA in seeking to set their finger on the pulse of how God is associating to humanity.

In an age where immature people are progressively ill of a deficiency of genuineness – peculiarly from the church – the unrestrained honestness of To Write Love on Her Arms is improbably appealing. TWLOHA talks a batch about the thought of a being a portion of a narrative ; “ To Write Love on Her Arms is a work in advancement, ” is the opening line of their MySpace profile. There is really small needed to state to explicate why honestness is a important portion of any work that is supposed to honor God. God has made it really clear that one of the prevailing criterions of his position of how life is supposed to look is to be ever stating the truth, and the whole truth. This is one of the grounds why Jamie distanced the administration from the Church, because immature people by and large have a position of the Church as being insincere, dishonest and hypocritical ; an attitude which, if TWLOHA was aligned with it, would evidently hold negative consequence on the work being done through it.

TWLOHA ‘s encouragement for immature people to populate in community, and to populate a life of conversation, complements an apprehension of a God of community ; i.e. , the Trinity. TWLOHA believes that human existences were non created to populate independently, that life works best in the context of healthy relationships. Sing people are cognizant of TWLOHA preponderantly in societies characterised by Westernised individuality, and hence solitariness, this is an of import value to be highlighted.

Possibly To Write Love on Her Arms ‘ greatest contemplation of a divinity of a God of agape is their handiness, and their willingness to travel into the lives of immature people – to run into them where they are at. TWLOHA were n’t willing to wait in a church house until broken people came to them. Jesus said, “ Travel, and hence do adherents… ” , non to wait until they came to church. And, in fact, Jesus ‘ committee to his followings was merely a petition to make what Jesus had already done. He came into the thick of humanity and started repairing things. And while there is no uncertainty that TWLOHA do n’t make it absolutely, they are seeking to acquire into the universe of immature people, and they are seeking to demo them the hope of Jesus. They are seeking to take them to life.

And while they may hook some unfavorable judgment from non making it under the counsel of the Church, I can merely conceive of that they are making what is right in God ‘s sight. For starting motors, they have reached an astonishing sum of people. They have extraordinary connexions through societal networking sites – they have 220844 friends on MySpace entirely ( as of May 2008 ) . They besides won the a MySpace Impact Award for ‘Community Building ‘ in 2007.

This good work started on MySpace – a web site which has come under contempt from the Church – and gained their promotion from stone sets: foremost Christian bands such as Anberlin and Switchfoot, but so ‘non-Christian ‘ sets joined the TWLOHA journey. The ultimate message of TWLOHA through all of their traffics with people, irrespective of their religious point of view, irrespective of even their attitude towards TWLOHA, is that before anything, people are people, and that everyone has their humanity in common ; TWLOHA figures that it will allow anyone make anything, so long as it will progress the cause of hope.

I unfeignedly believe this is the attitude of God excessively. He is non afraid to acquire his custodies dirty with mussy people. God ‘s grace sees past what we do or what we say or how we look to who we truly are. Jesus took unimpressive, undereducated working category common people to be his followings. TWLOHA takes hardcore bikerss in tight denims.

The manner the narrative started sets the ethos for the administration: to summarize, Jamie Tworkowski was willing to allow this alien, Renee Yohe, into his life, despite all her issues and problem, and despite all it might be him ; along with his friends, they look after Renee for the five yearss needed to acquire the drugs out of her system, as the intervention Centre wo n’t accept her as she is, naming her ‘too great a hazard ‘ . And so, for five yearss, they take her stone concerts, they pray for her, they listen to her ; and eventually, she goes into rehabilitation.

This is existent ministry.

For Jamie and the other Christians on the TWLOHA squad, they are merely seeking to work with the Holy Spirit to convey deliverance into the universes of those who are hapless in many ways. As Jamie reflects in the narrative of those five yearss with Renee – which have become a kind of vision statement for the administration – he recalls author Don Miller stating that “ we ‘re called to keep our custodies against the lesions of the universe, to halt the hemorrhage ” . And, as Walter Kasper writes,

“ Everywhere that life interruptions Forth and comes into being, everyplace that new life as it were seethes and bubbles, and even, in the signifier of hope, everyplace that life is violently devastated, throttled, gagged and murder – wherever true life exists, there the Spirit of God is at work. ”

To Write Love on Her Arms ‘ work has challenged the ministry of my life immeasurably since I foremost stumbled across it last twelvemonth. Their natural honestness entirely confronted me, and I read through their web logs and wrestled with their political orientations, I surmised that this was a wondrous existent, honest and loving manner to react to the agony of humanity.

To Write Love on Her Weaponries allowed itself to be cognizant of the issues most stultifying the civilization it was involved in – American immature people – and responded. It started from where it was – as an single seeking to assist person they met – and someway, it became so much more. I suppose I can associate a batch as, like Jamie, I am an aspirant author, I love stone music, and my friends are largely hurt, broken, and alienated by faith. The undertaking for me, and TWLOHA has inspired and encouraged me, is to populate out my religion so truly that hope is n’t seen as a spiritual word, it ‘s a world.

And now, as I take on more duty in taking young person plans, I am continually look intoing to do certain that it is across-the-board ; that there is no linguistic communication barrier for people who want to acquire closer to God – or even merely want a better life – but do n’t cognize how ; that there is no opinion to people based on how they look or even how they act ; that I am prepared to bury the construction and modus operandi of what we do on a Friday dark for the interest of what people need ; and more significantly, that I am prepared to bury the construction and modus operandi of my life for the interest of what people need.

The truth is that Christians stand in between a universe of agony and a God who brings hope, but we are n’t making our portion in linking the two. And sometimes, it would look, that ‘church ‘ can simply be an obstruction for some people in coming to God. And I do n’t believe that the constructions and systems that make up what we call ‘church ‘ are necessary for people to come to God. For some people, they help. But for a batch, and for most immature people, they do n’t.

All we need to be prepared to run into people wherever on the journey they are, and love them.

The other major ministry of my life is as a school chaplain in a public high school. Yesterday I sat with a miss who had merely been in a battle, who was populating a life that was n’t her mistake, and she was shouting, and I did n’t cognize what was incorrect, but I sat with her. I merely sat with her, for 20 proceedingss, in silence. I do n’t cognize if I could ‘ve done something better or non. But I tried to be the best friend I could be to this miss, and I prayed for her mutely, and I prayed for hope. And I guess the ground that I did that is because I believe in a God who wants the best for her, and I do n’t cognize how that looks, but if it ‘s my occupation to be a portion of conveying it to her, so I want to.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: To Write Love on Her Arms aspire to ever see beauty and value in human existences, because God sees beauty and value in them, and so should we. Regardless of what they ‘ve done, what they look like, what sort of music they like, what beliefs they have, or what is traveling on in their Black Marias, people are astonishing, and forgiveness is available to them, and God wants them as portion of his narrative. And there is hope, and Christians, whatever their ministry looks like, whether it is through a church or in their mundane life, need to be prepared to travel a long manner out of their manner to assist people happen it.

In the words of a agony miss named Renee, on the dark before she went into a intervention Centre, “ The stars are ever at that place, but we miss them in the soil and clouds. We miss them in the storms. State them to retrieve hope. We have hope. ”

Further Resource:

www.twloha.com

www.twloha.com/the_story.php

www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms