These are excerpts from a friend's blog entry written quite a long while ago. Some things have happened lately that made me recall these words and play them over and over in my head.

by Bethany Horne
“Everybody likes to feel that someone believes in them, in their potential to become better people, and their inbuilt goodness. But for those of us who do the believing, at what point does our faith become naïve, deserving of ridicule? How many steps in the wrong direction does a person have to take for it to be foolish to keep cheering for them to win the race? To even make it to the finish line?

Sometimes I ask myself if it is worth it, if it is worth all the heartache. I think of Jesus. How long would he still believe? How long would he believe in the beauty of their futures, in the purity of their souls? To the point of naivety? To the point of deserving ridicule?

But we are all broken, stumbling, looking for missing parts of ourselves, so desperate we will never find anything, so scared nothing more exists. We are all so weak, so easily influenced by false leads, easily manipulated by hints of false affection. Looking forward to the weekend high, the anticipation of that moment of rebellion makes the parents crap easier to bear during the week. The safety of that group that sells their conscience for drugs. Thin scab lines up and down forearms, evidence of shallow surface cuts with a razor blade, almost beautifully arranged in patterns, displayed as grotesque flags to lure in concerned attention. Or pitiful attention. Or any attention. Anything!! We are all messes.

We have no damn clue what Jesus would do. Are they ever going to change? Are they ever going to overcome their own selves? Are they going to survive? There are people who love them. I want to answer YES to all those questions, but I don't know the future. I want to be there for them, no matter how many times they break my heart, no matter how far they descend into their negative habits, their self-destruction. They are not proud of this. They do not love themselves. They are not happy. But they are lost in a maze and making so many wrong turns.

I feel ridiculous. I feel naïve. But I can not give up on them. I have to believe in them, beyond logic, beyond what other people consider rational. "Gang-members, druggies, thieves, prostitutes, good for nothings"…. But what about the liars and cheaters, the vain, selfish, proud, short-tempered, the gossiper, the vengeful?” What about this: I am flawed, I am lost. I am scared, just as scared as they are.

I have to believe they are worth believing in, because I have to believe Jesus still believes in me.”