How New Horizons Has Helped My Life
I am a former student. How has New Horizons helped me in my life? I believe this experience was a springboard into my adult life. My life at the time I entered New Horizons was very unsatisfying. I was very empty and alone on the inside. I often compare my life to a campfire that was burnt out, nothing but 1 or 2 hot coals were in the pit. God used New Horizons to come along and kick my coals around and the fire was restored. The fire burnt brighter, higher, and hotter than ever before.
I have just recently visited New Horizons. Deb Hatland was giving me the update on some of the past students. There was not a lot to smile about. Why? I think all of us can agree that our experience at New Horizons was not the easiest. When we look back at it, can we see that maybe some of us had structure for the first time in our lives, we had security, we had love? I say love.
Love, the meaning, is something I have searched for in my life. Love can be tough at times. We experienced love at New Horizons, we got to experience the tough part of it, and I hope that we all can feel that we experienced the gentle side of love as well. We have now left the security New Horizons provided. The hate of the world has a chance to tear us apart.
So what do we have when we leave? What do we bring with us to face the world? What I brought home with me was a relationship with Jesus Christ. New Horizons is nothing but a school, a house, and some people, to those who see with the eyes of the world. If you can see with your heart, you will see something completely different. You will be able to see “faith, hope, and love.” New Horizons cannot save us, it cannot turn our lives from misery to euphoria. Jesus Christ can and will change our hears. Misery is easy to do, easy to hold onto.
There is a statement Mark Twain wrote, “The wake does not drive the boat.” The past can only effect our future if we let it. The wake is behind the boat, it has nothing to do with what is in front of the boat. Deb told me on my last visit that according to my psychological background, I am not supposed to be doing the things that I do. “I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me.” I wonder what the psychologists have to say about that. When the world knocks us down, be like Rocky, get back up. I have been knocked down and not known what happened, but what I did know was this: Get up! I knew I wanted to get up, but I did not know how to pick myself up, as I often experience. Only God has the strength to do that. “Walk by faith, not by sight.”
Marcus Santi