It was midnight, and I felt I needed to call my friend, Jun. He had just broken off a bad romantic relationship the night before, and I knew that now would be the time he would call the girl if he were to mess up and contact her. So I gave him a ring, and I heard the recording say that he was on the phone. My heart sank.

The next day I talked to Jun and asked him what happened. He told me that he had gone to bed early the night before, and that in the morning he saw he had missed a call from another friend at midnight. “I guess you called at the same time as the other guy,” he told me.

It sounded like a lie, thought up at the moment to cover for an indiscretion. But I don’t think it was. That was almost a month ago, and Jun is taking leaps forward in his relationship with the Father. It was such an honor to walk through that process with him. Vash and I got to encourage him to come clean with what was happening, to chose the right way, and to promise the embrace of the Father through it.

This last month or so, we’ve had the opportunity to get heart-to-heart with our “students” and share the grace of God with them. We had a guy tell us he wants to beat his battle with porn, another guy say that he avoids being around us because he feels dirty and shameful, and see another guy seem to suddenly get passionate about what the Book says. It seems like Jesus is answering our petition: we want to see his grace go deep into the lives of those we are raising up.

Recently, when I’ve been teaching and praying, I’ve found myself talking about the verse that says, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” That sounds like my Jesus; the big, huge, God of the universe, yes, but he can hold a bruised and beat up heart in his hand, and it will not break. He loves us so much, and he loves the people I’m reaching out to so much. We, the bruised, are safe in his healing hands.