It wasn’t until after she walked away that I realized the magnitude of what she had just told me. I turned and looked down and the three words we had just written – YOU ARE LOVED. This girl had only heard one other person in her life tell her that she is loved. This is why I will continue to go out, chalk in hand whenever there is an opportunity. You never know how your words can impact someone – even the people who may not appear to need any encouragement. They may have never been told the simple truth that you are loved. “For God so loved the world…”

You can be forgiving.
You can help foster community.
You can live a good story.

At the time, my wife and I had only lived in Chicago for about a month, so we were both looking for work. Soon, my wife was employed by a lucrative law firm downtown, and I picked up a job at a restaurant. I was hoping the restaurant job would be temporary, until something better came along, but as the months wained on, it became increasingly clear that the job was going to last longer than I had hoped. Soon, my wife was bringing home a decent paycheck and providing us with insurance while I struggled to get 30 hours a week at the restaurant. After a while, with no sight of more promising employment on the horizon, I began to feel like a failure, with the strain of supporting us resting almost completely on my wife’s shoulders. I certainly wasn’t much of a provider. Soon I was questioning whether I was much of a husband or even, as a 25 year old with a college degree working a job often reserved for high school kids, much of a man.

While all this was developing, I had continued to chalk with COMMUNITY Edgewater, and it was then that I began to realize what the chalk messages were doing. Like Jesus, they were speaking truth and power into the lives of people who felt powerless and hopeless, including me. I don’t have to let my job or income level define me because I have a loving Savior who assures me that I have worth, value, and power because He has given it to me. Like me, Jesus wasn’t successful by the world’s standards, but He embodied what being a man truly means, by being brave and compassionate and truthful. And He tells me I can be those things too. No matter what my paycheck says, I have a God who whispers, “You were meant for amazing things.”

I had just moved back to the windy city a few months prior and was trying to re-acclimate to living there. Everything was stressing me out: my finances, my job, and the email I had received at work the day before from my abusive ex. In spite of the several states between us, he loved to play mind games and let me know he could always find me. I just wanted to hide, but I could not afford to do so.

I knew that message was for me. I walked on towards the “El” with tears stinging my eyes and a lump in my throat, but I held my head up and kept my gaze ahead. Over the next few days I thought about that message on the sidewalk. I wondered who had written it and how it was there exactly when I needed it. They were powerful words – words I could draw strength from. Words I needed. I wrote them in my journal and would say them to myself when I started to feel overwhelmed or sad about the path my life had taken.

A few weeks had passed and I saw another message on the sidewalk. The message said “What would your ten year-old self tell you?” Again I was floored by the message. I thought about it all day. What would my ten year-old self say to me? Would I like my life? Would I be disappointed with my choices or pleased? As a ten year-old would, I still felt it wasn’t too late to change directions, and finally write that book I always wanted to write. That I should sing again because I enjoyed it once. That I should not give up on love just because someone had been cruel to me.

The words on the sidewalk gave me hope, possibility. Again, they stuck with me. I decided to investigate who wrote the words on the sidewalk that made me feel not so alone, so I searched online and pretty quickly came across Community Christian Church- Edgewater. I was kind of surprised that they had been the group leaving messages on the sidewalk. As I investigated the church’s website, their message, and other community work, I was again moved by their words. I decided I wanted to check them out in person. I had not been to church since I was a teenager and deciding to go again was a huge step for me.

Community Christian Church- Edgewater is nothing like the churches of my childhood, because they welcome everyone with open arms. More importantly, they put actions behind their words with the work they do. I felt the love of my new church and of God so openly that I wanted to be there and to get involved, to open myself up. In the past few months I have done just that. I have become a part of the community.
You might wonder if I am now behind any of the chalk messages they are still writing on the sidewalks. Not directly – I choose not to participate in this activity because I still need those messages myself. But I look forward to the surprise and inspiration I get from them, and the love I feel. Only now I know where it is all coming from: God working through my church, and through my new friends.