It had been a l o n g and discouraging 19 month journey with our youngest.
At the end of May, Kevin and I went and spent some days with our boy who is so far away. It was an amazing visit – he was engaging, relational, entering into healthy conversations, reading devotions to me, laying on the bed with me while I read the Bible to him. We hiked, laughed, shopped, ate pizza, enjoyed ice-cream. It was just so good.
We came home and he dropped back into the sludge again, but not as deep and he didn’t stay there long; it didn’t panic us, we expected this.
He seemed to look up for the following 8 weeks ~ 8 amazing weeks.
He walked into the most healthy mindset we had ever seen from him.
We saw his actions match his words, and we felt his spirit reach for ours.
It was 10,000 prayers answered.
Then the descending began again about 4 or 5 weeks ago. Suddenly he didn’t care once more – he was making poor decisions (but not his worst decisions). He expressed a fairly hopeless mindset and seemed disconnected again. This time, I fell too. My heart has been heavy and I have felt discouraged.
I’ve turned and leaned into God. I’ve taken the line “And when I cannot stand, I’ll fall on you, Jesus you’re my hope and stay.” to heart. I’ve had to go back to what I KNOW and have experienced as true ~
- God has been faithful in our 8 1/2 years with our almost 17 year old son.
- God has a good plan for our boy.
- Although I feel like 8 years is long-suffering, it is not.
- There are others who walked longer, more painful and utterly confusing roads.
- God Himself has renewed my heart and hope for this boy too many times to count. I am not this sustaining on my own. I grow bitterness and resentment and exhaustion. God wipes it all away over and over and plants seeds of hope, love and steadfastness.
- I believe God gave me a vision several years ago of this boy standing in freedom as a young man. He’s getting taller and older – I’ll hold that as hope as he stretches into young manhood.
- I cannot give in, give up, quit. I will stand in the belief that he will heal.
Today I prepared my heart for our weekly Skype therapy session; lower my expectations, meet him where he is, don’t get ahead of him in this process. Last Sunday at the end of our weekly call I asked him three questions – What is the hardest part of being you? What is the best part of being you? What does God think of you? Today he opened the session with telling me he was prepared to answer my questions from Sunday – and then he did. His answers were honest and well thought out. He went on to hold a healthy, pretty vibrant, connected, open, honest, eye-contact, hour session. He told me one of the students was going home – early. His perception is that the boy’s parents were taking him out of the program early. Curiously, I asked if he thought we should take him out of the program early…he said “Probably not. I want to feel like I accomplished something. I don’t want to waste two years.”
And a light began to shine again.
19 long months of a lot of dark.
8 weeks of light and hope.
4 weeks of holding my heart so it wouldn’t bottom out.
1 day of hope rising again.
My heart is full. I can hear freedom calling.
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