Get into the Back Seat and Hold Her

By Marina Sullivan

We all have a story to live, to share and to embrace.  The truth is the story doesn’t always read the way we think it should.

At Mercy Ministries, staff are supporting actors in heroic stories. There are times we stand on the sidelines as choices are made and scripts rewritten.  This may mean that girls  walk away from the application process before being  admitted, leave the home  before they graduate, or sadly for some, the fire that they played with consumes them and a  life ends before the story was played out.

A life that ends prematurely speaks loudly of potential left undiscovered. Unmet destinies linger in empty spaces.

A vacant seat at a kitchen table

children not born

a husband not married

the missing contagious laugh at every get-together

Hind sight is 20/20 they say. It seems natural to look back and question if there was something we could have said or done to make a difference and change the ending.   Was there a sign that was missed or comment that went unheard?  In these difficult places, come difficult conversations.  Conversations with the ones left behind.

One such conversation, with a father of a Mercy applicant who had passed away suddenly, lingers in my mind and has impacted my life and my story.  I remember the waver in his voice under the strain of holding back tears.  He recalled a day with his daughter, a typical day filled with to-do-lists.

His daughter was in the back seat of the car and his mind was filled with the tasks of the day.  He said he knew she was having a hard day “but then most days had seemed hard lately.”  Then he said something so poignant, so heart stopping, that the depth of its meaning hit me to the core:

“If only I had got into the back seat and held her.”

There is little to compare to the un-quenched ache a of a parent.  Yes, that is love. Unfathomable.  Unrelenting.  All consuming, love.  That is the heart of a father.

It is there in the hard moments, the real moments that we get a glimpse of the love our Father in Heaven has for each one of us.  He is waiting and willing to meet us, to climb into the backseat with our junk and mess and pain, and hold us.  He knows the ending before it begins.  He knows the amazing story he has written just for us.  It is an epic story of love and hope and dreams”

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jeremiah 29:11

Women who are on the waiting list for Mercy Ministries receive encouragement from women who are already in the program.  Small  3″x5″  index cards filled with  heart and hope  for  women they do not know,  yet  so intimately understand.  They appreciate how vital it is to be encouraged; they know the need for Jesus to meet them in the backseat where there is little control.

Mercy Comes Free

By Musu Taylor-Lewis

All of the young women, who come to the Mercy Ministries home, are taken in completely free of charge.  This is one of three founding principles given to Nancy Alcorn when she started Mercy Ministries over 25 years ago. It is an expensive commitment for a ministry that does not take funding from any  government source, but the importance of the principle came  through recently in the story of one of our Canadian residents.

She had applied to come to Mercy after years of struggling with a severe eating disorder and had looked at the possibility of going to a private eating disorder clinic in her city:

“They required a minimum stay of 80 days [less than 3 months] at the clinic and charged $600 – $800 per day.  It would have cost my family $48,000 for me to go there and we just don’t have that kind of money”

The fact that Mercy was free brought her through the doors, but while at Mercy this young lady dealt with so much more than her eating disorder and in the process found her way back to the God she had rejected as a youth.

Her story explains the heart of why Mercy will always be free; after all, the God who gave Nancy Alcorn those principles, also  gives mercy freely everyday to everyone of us, and Mercy Ministries is another way He extends his generosity to hurting young women.

Nancy Alcorn explains  in her book “Echoes of Mercy.”

“Part of the reason for this of course, is that many of the girls who come into the homes do not have any financial means. What a tragedy it would be for a child to be killed because a young woman could afford an abortion but not a safe haven to have her baby.

Even more important to us, however, is our desire to represent the unconditional love of Jesus. There are quite a number of girls whose parents could pay to send them to Mercy Ministries. If we charged any of the girls, they would be tempted to think that we are trying to help them simply because we get paid for our services. We don’t want to give the accuser any opportunity to cause the young women to doubt our intentions”

Nancy Alcorn with former Mercy Residents

Mercy stays free because of the generosity of individuals and like-minded organizations that faithfully support the ministry.
The Canadian home is completely funded by donors in Canada.  Currently matching funds, available to Mercy Ministries Canada doubles the monthly donations of all new Treasure Builders. Click here to find out more about this opportunity or to sign up as a monthly donor.