To Write Love On Her Arms

This began simply as an attempt to tell a story and a way to help a friend. I met a girl named Renee in Orlando in February 2006. When I met her she was struggling with drug addiction, depression, self-injury and had attempted suicide. She had just been denied entry into a treatment center so my friends and I enthusiastically gathered around to support her. She spent the next five days coming back to life in our living room. These were her first days sober in a long time and we would stay up late talking about her life, the moments and choices and patterns that had become her story.

I had the privilege of sharing some of that story -- two pages of writing that took on the curious title “To Write Love on Her Arms”. We started printing t-shirts and selling them as a way to raise money for her treatment. Then we made a MySpace page to give the story and the shirts a home.

My friend Jon plays and sings in a band called Switchfoot and he was the first to wear one of the shirts, at a sold-out Switchfoot show in March 2006. There was no mention of a web address, no table at the back with information, but the messages began to pour in after that show. We heard from people that had been in the room that night, people that had lost loved ones to suicide, people who confessed that suicide was something they had considered.

My friend Chad plays drums in Switchfoot and he wore the shirt the following night in Jacksonville, and more messages arrived. We heard from people battling depression, people stuck in places of pain. People shared secrets, asked for help, asked how to help their friends…

We realized quickly that this story we were telling was connected to a much a much bigger story. We learned that millions of people live with these problems of pain but very few people talk about them.  We learned that in America alone, 19 million people struggle with depression, that untreated depression is the leading cause of suicide, and that 2 out of 3 people who live with depression never get help. That last statistic suggested that the majority of people who live with depression walk through it alone. It all pointed to the stigma and the shame and confusion that imprisons millions in silent suffering.

The shirts continued to end up on surprising stages and different doors kept opening. Fast-forward to today, TWLOHA is now a non-profit organization and the messages continue to arrive, people asking for help and people asking how they can help. As a team, we’ve now responded to 100,000 messages and emails and those messages have come from more than 100 different countries. We’ve been able to give nearly $500,000 directly to treatment and recovery.

Beyond all of that, we continue to get opportunities to bring a message of hope and help and community to surprising places.  In the media thanks to NBC Nightly News, CNN, MTV and more. Online with Facebook and Twitter and one of the most-read blogs on MySpace. At concerts and festivals and college campuses across America and as far away as Europe and Australia. And we get to challenge the Church to be a people and place willing to engage pain and questions, willing to admit their own struggles and willing to learn what Jesus meant in all that talk about love.

For more information about To Write Love on Her Arms, please visit www.twloha.com

1 Comment »

1. Brilliant. Though i have not been directly affected. I have dated someone battling depression. At first i thought she was kidding seeing as her raison d’etre was nothing compared to what a typical african kid growing up in England then Africa would experience. Through the love of Christ she has completely healed. But it is good to see the love of Christ spread in this way….

   Comment by Estephan Nonsoezeoke - Jun 18, 2009 @ 03:03 PM

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