Parenting...

I don't feel like I have a lot of rights to talk about this, but my heart is both overflowing with thanksgiving for the blessings of a stable home and the heartache of watching teenagers deal with life. We've definitely had our struggles, but I'm very thankful to be able to say that I feel, with divine intervention and outside counseling, we are making baby steps towards a whole, happy family. In the last while we've been spending a lot of time with a lot of teenagers -- guess that comes of parenting one! What I see just breaks my heart, humbles me, finds me begging for wisdom at the Throne of the greatest Giver of all, makes me want to be all that I've vowed to be. Three weeks ago, or so, Tiana's friend's brother took his own life. The desperate sadness, anger and emptiness over this has been quite overwhelming. We've known the family for about 6 years and so as parents we've also felt her parents' pain, but have felt very keenly the pain that his teenage sister has been feeling. Yesterday we were at the Celebration of Life for Josh. We were surrounded by beautiful young people, a lot of whom I would say are in very tough situations. Many split homes, lots of confusion, on the cusp of life in a tough economy, just very tough. My heart ached for them, knowing that some of them didn't have much more than each other to lean on, and not that that has no value, but another "unstable" teenager isn't going to hold you up for long. After the service another friend from CampFire (this is how we came to know Josh's family, too) came up to me in tears and just leaned on me for a few minutes. Last night we texted for a long time. The poor thing has no one really to talk to and doesn't even know how to open up. This is the thing I fear the most for these kids -- that they bottle things up, never learn the tools to deal with their emotions, close themselves off from family and friends, and then end up another statistic. I've seen other of Tiana's friends turn aside because of their own feelings of, maybe, self-worthlessness, frustration, loneliness, and I fear that by turning away the very people that could be a great friend to them, they are setting themselves up for even more pain.

Anyway, I'm not sure, really, the point of this post, but I just want to say how thankful I am that I know a God who loves and cares and that He has put in me something that is drawing some of these children to me, to us, and my prayer is that all of us, as parents, grandparents, adult friends of teenage children be given the wisdom that we need, the extra love we need to help them through some extremely tough years. From the vantage point of -- it's still quite a few more years through our teens -- it seems a long road, but I have growing faith that together we can make it. To all of you who are reading this and are simply adult friends to these kids -- thank you!! It makes our jobs as parents easier when you are to them a strong, upright role model in their lives!!