Dear Inner Circle,

A text popped up on my phone today from a young woman whom I hadn’t heard from in over a year. When I first met her, she was only 11, a tiny, withdrawn girl whose beautiful smile could light up a room, yet her eyes rarely lifted from the floor. We lived next door to her in Mt Druitt and she would often come over to our house to talk with my wife Lisa. Initially I thought she came to play with our young daughters, who simply adored her. Yet in time, I realised she was escaping a household where abuse was a daily occurrence. It’s difficult for me to understand a father who could scream at his beautiful children until 2 in the morning. It’s even more difficult to understand why some nights she would take it upon herself to deliberately bait her father when he returned home in a drunken rage so that he wouldn’t turn on her mum and younger siblings. When we moved away from Mt Druitt this girl was the person we found it hardest to leave, we even quietly begged her to come with us. Her message today stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t a cry for help, it wasn’t a list of the latest failings of her father, it was a message full of hope. She thanked us for the years of love we’d shown her and talked of the happy times she’d spent in our home. She told me that she’d just finished a bushwalk through Tasmania with her school, a feat she’d never thought she’d accomplish. I’ve re-read her text about one hundred times today. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that leave a lasting impact.

When something human happens, at least two people are changed. This week a searching email made its way to my inbox from the partner of a fellow who was living on the cold streets of Melbourne 20 years ago. I’d walked past him on the same corner every day on my way to work until eventually I gave in, and ignoring some of my better judgement, asked him if he wanted to stay in our spare room for a few weeks. We took him in off the streets, but we never imagined he’d take us into his heart. I was 22 at the time, and I related to the guy – the same longing for a purpose, the same search for connection. At that time, the man had just lost contact with his two young daughters and was numbing the pain on more than a daily basis, with whatever he could find. His journey has been anything but easy. In the years since we last met, I would often think of him, particularly as I became the father of daughters myself, and I wondered how he bore the pain of losing them. This was long before the days of social media and I never knew if he survived his own inner desire for self-destruction. Turns out he did. And better still, he was tracking me down because he had big news. He’s found the woman with whom he wants to grow old, and he wants me to be there to conduct his wedding. What an honour.

Keep reading Assistant Pastor Jon Owen's Inner Circle here.