Dear Friends of Social Workers,

Thank you.

Trust me when I say you are a treasure in the midst of our mess. You sit patiently and graciously while we rant about the injustice we see daily. You laugh with us as we tell some of the most unbelievable stories imaginable. And you don’t judge us when we can’t decide if we want to cry or just drink half a bottle of wine.

It takes a special person to be friends with a social worker. To avoid having pity on our clients and instead see them as we do—magnificently strong and absolutely capable of restoration—can be a challenging task. To be comfortable with uncomfortable conversations, because Lord knows we aren’t going to avoid them. To see us at our most broken and hopeless, and love us even more fiercely. 

We treasure you deeply. We couldn’t be sustainable in our work without you. You remind us of the reasons why we continue when we have all but given up. The simple encouragement that we can keep going—these are the words we cling tightly to in the moments when we are thinking ‘maybe I could be a barista, that seems less stressful?’

You are a gift, and there are not enough words to fully describe how grateful we are for you. Thank you for being one phone call or text away, for celebrating our milestones and successes with us. Thank you for being understanding when we just want to hide from the world for a night. Thank you for praying for us, because sometimes our jobs feel like we are entering a battlefield. Thank you for being steadfast, full of grace, and exactly what we need when things feel like they’re falling apart.

We love you so dearly,

Social Workers

Am I the only one who unintentionally gets on her soapbox, only to realize five minutes into talking that I have hardly taken a breath? I get so consumed with this need to show people how they should think about something—my brain thinks “oh it’s so simple, if I just keep explaining it I know they’ll come around.”

I have a knack for boiling down incredibly complex concerns—homelessness, family planning choices, foreign policy, gun control—to convince myself that I am on the “right” side of the discussion. It helps my soul feel a little more in control of my world, but also makes my world very black and white.

When our dialogue becomes more about a platform than about a person, we detract from the humanity that these issues are really meant to encompass. In the season our country is in, I see people’s vulnerable and personal experiences be used by others to win a debate or prove a point.

I want to acknowledge that as Christians I don’t think we are called to shy away from truth and hard conversations. It’s just as the days pass by, I see more divisiveness, judgment, and shaming than humility-fueled and grace-filled dialogue.

Here is the distinction I want to make between experiences and capital “I” Issues. While experiences are unique, dynamic, and nuanced based on who is being impacted by them, issues can be static and universal, applied as one size fits all.

Experiences are honored. Issues are argued.

Rather than statistics or political party talking points, what if the first thing brought to the forefront of our minds was a face?

The families I am privileged to work with experience the very things on center stage today—no stable or affordable housing, lack of health insurance, extended family facing deportation, I could go on and on. Their stories have retrained by brain to recognize the complexity of these challenges, yet I still have to resist my urge to point my finger at the people ‘not doing enough’ to fix our problems.

Maybe we would picture the face of our friend, a person down the street from us, or ourselves—would we engage in that conversation differently?

I wonder if we might better embody grace, mercy, and truth.

What if we shifted from a paradigm of “I don’t want to hold any punches because I know what is good and true,” to putting down our fists altogether and not making these fights to be won?

Will you join me?

Choose understanding and humility over winning.

Enter into dialogue with neighbors living in the midst of these hardships to learn what it is really like—rather than relying on our assumptions or stereotypes.

This is when things start to get complicated. Let’s relish in it, rather than run from it.

This is so much easier said than done, but I am convinced that God will produce so much good fruit in the midst of the messiness.