S T O R I E S

The heart of a close-knit hamlet is as big as the countryside around it. Sometimes you don't see it until you, or someone you know, needs it.

You may not even know you need it until the community pours its understanding, sentiment, prayers, ideas, suggestions, and even a few casseroles, upon you.

It happened this week; it has happened often in the many years before.

A death in the family, tragedy of any kind, accident or something that affected a child happens and the people put down their causes, their differences and their issues and rally around for support.

"Let me know if there is something I can do," echoes through the air day and night and comes from the deepest sincerity.

Phone calls, emails and chats on the sidewalk, in cafés, offices and at the post office supersede any mass-media attempts to offer information, condolences or support.

When the saints pray, heaven moves. When the community rallies, walls fall.

This time, it was one of our kids who pulled back the curtain and exposed the power of caring people.

As teenagers will do, he got almost grown up, he thought, and decided he didn't have to live at home, be in school and all that "stuff" that requires meeting standards and following rules.

So he walked away from school and left his mother, dad and hundreds of people looking for him, praying for him, sharing information about what they might know and seeking to find resolution in something that could happen to any of us.

Right now, he thinks it is all about him and what he wants. He has no idea the things his emotional decision set in motion behind him.

However, his family does. His friends do. His school friends, his teachers, his church and pastors, neighbors, and friends and associates of his parents do.

Within 24 hours people in half-a-dozen states were sending prayers and support to the appropriate places.

There is a long list of teen runaway statistics.

Between 1.3 and 2.8 million runaway and homeless youth live on the streets of America each year.

One in seven youths will run away from home before the age of 18.

This incident became a statistic in the big picture. But locally, he is one of ours. He has a name, a face, a personality, and he belongs to us.

For us, he is not a statistic. He is one of ours.

His peers have watched this unfold. There is a lesson here for the teens that he passed in the halls every day at the high school. A lesson they need to grab ahold of and remember always.

Life gets hard, life seems unfair and sometimes, life, right at the heart of where you live, seems unbearable.

The remedy for that is not being somewhere else out of reach of the people who can help you. The antidote is right where you stand with the people who know you, love you and are willing to help you without ulterior motives.

What I want them to understand is, if they run, they only take the pain with them. They also leave plenty of it behind with a community who will take it on until things are made right again.

Then, and only then, will we return to the normalcy of small-town living in the endless blur of small talk, local politics and weather predictions.

Meet Julie on her Web site at www.julie-carter.com