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i'm megan
and this is where i tell you about me....so here is goes

well i love switchfoot...a whole lot. they changed my life and i love them for it :] theyre incredible people. i love in ohio (san diego would be better....yes...that where switchfoot lives :] )and i go to cedar creek church and its amazing. i play guitar....and someday i want to get a red gibson SG like JON FOREMAN.

that guitar is apparently brown haha but he had a red one and i want it! :] oh my gosh i love jon. hes probably the nicest person i've ever met....ever. he's so amazing ! yeah and i know you already knew that :] yeah so i like the color green. i know you dont care but i just thought i would share. hah i want to go to san diego really really bad and you to a switchfoot concert :] that would be so rad ! OH YEAHHH. heh so anways...i absolutely HATE it when people WRiT3 Lyk3 ThI$. i hate that with a passion. haha ok so i like music alot :] SWITCHFOOT IS MY FAVORITE BAND IN THE WORLD!

yes yes i bet you already knew that :] relient k is really amazing too and so are anberlin, paramore, the fray, david crowder band, chris tomlin, kutless, underoath, sanctus real, the killers, and alot more that i cant really think of right now :] ok well i skateboard (kind of.) i deffinately need to practice. and if myspace wasnt so addicting then that might actually happen. alrighty so....IM me at iluvswitchf00t. i get on AIM like everytime i get on the computer....which is alot....so i'm on alot haha. i love switchfoot. and i love concerts!!!!!! ESPECIALLY SWITCHFOOT CONCERTS. OH MY WORD THOSE ARE AMAZING! ok so i'm REALLLYYYY looking forward to oh! gravity ! that cd is going to be INCREDIBLE! (its the new switchfoot cd coming out on december 26 for all you people who dont know.) ok well my family is amazing. and my friends are cool too. ok so i like fall. (the season....not like "i like TO fall" falling hurts....but the season is awesomely fantastic!) yeah. fall as in this:

yeah that was a bit random but oh well. I LOVE SWITCHFOOT. ahh yes i do. and if you didnt already know that, theres seriously something wrong with you :] i have over 2,000 switchfoot pictures saved on my computer yay!! ok well my favorite flower is a DAISY....and yes the reason does have to do with switchfoot :] they have a song called daisy, therefore....its my favorite flower. yep ok....so i hate my school x348234789. i want to move to san diego!! :] yeah. i want to learn to surf sometime....like switchfoot! they surf. yeah because theyre amazing :] i hate heights. therefore i hate rollercoasters....so...im not going on one ever again....ever. and airplanes weird me out a bit too. i dont like them...at all. haha but when we go on vacation i have to ride one (apparently.) wow. okay...and then switchfoot guys are DEFFINATELY my heros (yes they are amazing):

and oh yeah....one more thing.....
LET'S CHANGE THE WORLD.

TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS.
by jamie tworkowski

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

switchfoot

OH! GRAVITY TOUR
10/17 - Bakersfield, CA @ Fox Theater - 7:30
10/18 - West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy - 8:00
10/19 - Sacramento, CA @ Crest Theatre - 8:00
10/20 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom - 8:00
10/21 - Boise, ID @ The Big Easy - 8:30
10/23 - Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre - 8:00
10/25 - Chicago, IL @ Metro/ Smart Bar - 7:00
10/26 - Minneapolis, MN @ Quest Club - 7:00
10/27 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave - 8:00
10/28 - St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant - 8:00
10/30 - Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall - 8:00
11/1 - Holland, MI @ Hope College - 7:00
11/2 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall - 8:00
11/3 - Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre - 8:00
11/4 - Lancaster, PA @ The Chameleon - 8:30
11/5 - Scranton, PA @ Tink's - 8:00
11/7 - Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa - 8:00
11/8 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza - 8:30
11/10 - Charlotte, NC @ Tremont Music Hall - 8:30
11/11 - Jacksonville, FL @ Freebird Live - 9:00
11/12 - Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution - 8:00
11/13 - Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues - 8:00
11/14 - Atlanta, GA @ Roxy Theatre - 8:00
11/16 - Nashville, TN @ War Memorial Auditorium - 8:00
11/17 - Little Rock, AR @ The Village - 8:00
11/18 - Tulsa, OK @ Cain's Ballroom - 8:00
11/20 - Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theatre - 8:00
11/21 - Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre - 8:00
11/22 - Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues - 7:30

switchfoot is the band that i'm in love with :] switchfoot is the band that changed my life. switchfoot is the band made up of some of the most incredible people ever. i've been to seven of their concerts SO FAR and i've met them four times SO FAR :] theyre so amazingly nice. they inspire me in so many ways you wouldnt even understand.
i love them

Heroes: