Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."
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REDEEMED
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IDENTIFIED
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SEEN
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EQUIPPED
Redeemed
At RISE, we believe your past does not have to determine your future. A person is not permanently defined by a record, failure, reputation, circumstance, or something that happened to them.
Identified
Through our programs and outreach, each participant is encouraged to understand who God says they are and to recognize the value and purpose He has placed in their lives.
Seen
Our team endeavors to see the person, not simply the need or circumstance. Participants are known by name, their progress is noticed, and people care whether they show up.
Equipped
With RISE, participants gain practical skills, tools, resources, direction, and confidence so they can make stronger decisions and take their next steps.
Changed Lives Change Generations
A PLACE TO BELONG- PATRICK FAIRLEY, JR.
I had a childhood I do not talk about easily. I finished high school anyway and enrolled at Meridian Community College to study medical office work and EMT, because I wanted to help people in their worst moments. Then something happened that I was not ready for. It left me alone. The things I carried from childhood came back as PTSD. Some of what I have lived through, most people will only ever see on television. I saw it up close, and I reached a point where I had to leave to protect my own life.
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For a long time after that, I did not speak much. It was easier to write than to talk. I had learned to live like someone who was always about to be sent away. You keep your bag half packed in your mind, because belonging is just something else that can be taken.
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Pinebelt Mental Health got me into an apartment and into a program called RISE. I did not expect much. But something was different there. I felt welcome, and I felt safe, and safe was not something I had felt in a long time. The welcome I found at RISE was a smaller picture of something bigger. Jesus is safe. He is the one who welcomes me in and calls me part of a family.
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Then I read Romans 8:15. It says I did not receive a spirit that makes me a slave to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, so that I can call God my Father. Fear was the only spirit I had ever known. That is not what I was given. I was given a Father. RISE walked that verse out in front of me before I could read it for myself, so when I read it, it was not a new idea. It was a name for something I had already begun to feel.
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I finished the RISE Thrive program. Somebody stayed with me until I could stay with myself. Along the way they found out I could sing, and at graduation I led my class in our song. For a young man who would not even speak when he walked in, that was a long way to come.
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If you have ever struggled to believe you belong, or if you assume you will be rejected so you do not even try, I understand you better than you think. I was that person. The fear that told me I did not belong was not telling me the truth.
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I did not find my way out on my own. God found me. Then He led me to RISE, where He put a family around me until I could believe I belonged in it. If He did this for me, He can do it for you. I am not the exception. I am the evidence.
Today I am living on my own. I am employed. I have a puppy named Mork.
