Its What We Do...

If we are honest, most days we are just trying to hold things together.

 Everywhere we look, something is threatening to come apart at the seams.  

Whether it’s family, house, yard, health, or work: it all seems to be held together by a very thin thread.  

God has gifted women with an extraordinary ability to not only juggle multiple items with incredible skill, but to keep them from falling apart.  We wield a God given Super Glue that we innately know how and where to apply. 

We are doers and fixers…and we are good at it!

We see every broken place, crack, splinter and weak spot and we are ON IT!  Fixing, applying, adding, piecing or simply fretting about how to fix it. 

  I don’t know about you…but I get so exhausted!!!

Sometimes, a lot of times, the problems are too complex for us to handle.  There are no books, seminars, conferences, techniques, counselors or even medications that we can turn to for help. 

The issues that we deal with are huge.  God has asked each and every one of us to hold the broken close to our hearts.  In doing so, their pain becomes very personal.   We rub up against it, touch it, feel it and help that person carry it.  Pain and brokenness are messy…so very messy!  When we get close, it soils us.

  But God asked us to embrace the broken because that is exactly what He did for and to us. 

  Is it easy, NO!  Is it fun, not in the slightest!  Does He ask us to like it, not at all!  

He never asked us to enjoy our walk in this world.  

He just asked us to be His light and love to the person we are walking with, knowing that the world has done a number on them too!

But when we can’t fix it:  when there isn’t anywhere to turn and we run out of answers, then we get discouraged.

Hopelessness, depression and despair start to swirl around like smoke and we choke on it.  Although we can work like crazy to fix things on a good day, the minute we can’t find a solution, we bow our heads and give up.  At least, I do!  And at that moment, we are made useless.  Our light goes out and we are disarmed.

Satan uses some pretty heavy weaponry on us because we are fighting ‘front line’ stuff.  We are walking beside Gods people, and this broken world has placed them within Satans grasp.  God has asked you to help get them back!  Do you think Satan is going to stand back and watch that happen?!!!  I DON’T THINK SO!

He will hit you with the big guns…problems that are too big for you to handle and when you can’t fix them, he’ll hit you with doubt, despair, discouragement and depression! You’ll get mad at yourself, your family, your church and community.  Everyone will have failed you, in your mind! 

But look at what he says in Acts 17:26-27---

“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.  Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’”

Do you hear what Paul is saying here?  Remember who God is!  He has allotted when you were to be born, where you were to be born and what the boundary of you life would be, whether physically or spiritually. 

  No matter where you are, you can at least FEEL your way toward Him and FIND Him!  

He is not so far from you…because ‘IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING’…

Fixing things in our life requires action, using our hands.  It’s what we do, we are good at it.  But when the dark smoke starts to swirl around you, you’re choking and you can’t see; 

reach out and ‘feel your way toward him and find him’.  

He didn’t leave you in some unknown place. 

  He put you there, and ‘is actually not far from’ you!  

Seattle skyline shrouded in smoke from wildfires

In His love,

Cath

A Teens Journey Through Addiction

This kid!...

our 9th child,

18 years old,

didn't graduate from high school,

can't drive until he's 21 years old due to drug charges,

lives in a half-way house and washes dishes in a restaurant,

and we simply could not be more proud of him and his accomplishments!!!  

Why?

Because in one week, we will celebrate a major milestone in his journey...ONE YEAR OF SOBRIETY....Yeah!!!!

At this time last year, we were picking him up from jail and driving him across the mountains to a  drug treatment facility.  He was so angry that we had to have his older brother ride along for extra protection in case he bolted or got violent.  I was literally shaking during the entire three hour drive!  Our relationship with him was almost completely broken.  We were all hurt and angry.

After 35 days in that treatment center, we drove 5 hours to the next one and he stayed there for 3 more months.

When his time there was up, we had no choice but to bring him home until we could find an available bed at an Oxford House (a clean and sober half-way house).  And he's been there ever since.

Its not that we didn't want him to stay home,  in fact, I grieved heavily at losing him again.  You see, he is such a bright, funny, loving, magnetic person.  He lights up every room he enters with a huge smile.  Drugs had stolen that person from me since the time he was 11 and then when he had finally gotten clean, and we could see glimmers of the boy we once knew coming back out, he wasn't able to stay.  And I felt robbed again.

But his drug buddies lived around us, and he couldn't risk falling into that lifestyle again.  Not only that, but he had gotten pretty heavy into dealing drugs and their were several people who wanted him dead...literally!

And now, here we are!  One year clean and sober...no alcohol, pot, Molly, mushrooms, cocaine, etc.  None of it...!

Here is our story...
I don't want this to come across like we did it right or have all the answers, far from it!  But rather,  in the hope that it will help someone who is in a similar situation and needs some encouragement, its a lonely road!

It took 3 years of fighting law enforcement to get him arrested enough times or for a serious enough offense that the court would order drug treatment.  That's right~ I was the crazy mom who called the police, called parole officers, called the court, called juvenile detention...hours upon hours of phone calls, snapping pictures of every shred of evidence I could find and waving it in peoples faces until someone finally heard me cry..."Help him!!!" ..."Please, someone help him before he's 18 and its too late!"

Why did I need the court to send him to treatment?  Because in our state, you can't force someone to go to counseling after the age of 13, let alone treatment.  Its ridiculous! He was a danger to society and himself, but unless he admitted there was a problem and chose to seek help on his own, there was nothing we could do.  So we hounded the system.  Praise God it worked for us, but there are WAY too many people who don't get to enjoy such happy outcomes.

The system is broken.  Especially when it comes to drug abuse and mental illness. ( I will tell you about our run-ins with the mental health circus sometime...that was a crazy ride!..no pun intended :P) But along the way, you learn valuable little tidbits that help you out...
For instance--in our state, every time you call 911 on your child his name gets on a list that goes to a Juvenile Court Judge, if he sees your childs name come up enough times, he can order him to appear in court to find out whats going on.
So, like a Mom on a mission to save her child, I called him in for everything you were allowed to call in for; leaving the house without permission, threatening people, damaging property, illegal possession of drugs or drug related items, skipping school...you name it, I called.

Some cops understood my mission and even applauded it.  Others complained that I was wasting their time.  It seemed to just be the luck of the draw.

At one point, we got him signed up for the Youth At Risk program.  Its a program through Juvenile Court where they bring in a mediator to try to assess how bad things are and help the family get things back on track.  If the kid won't cooperate, then they turn them over to a Judge, who then takes over the parenting role and consequences for breaking family rules becomes time in detention.

Its a good program for kids like ours, who really couldn't give a darn about house rules or school at all.  The Court Appointed Mediator was great and actually gave David and I the green light to lay down some heavy consequences that hesitated to do before.  It didn't take long for our little runaway to decide he didn't like the pressure and he decided Jobcorp was a better option for him.  But that only lasted about 5 months before he was kicked out for drug use...no big surprise!

Our big break came in December of 2014, when we received a notice from the court that he would have to appear before a judge for a drug charge from 10 months prior!!! Way back in February he had been caught on school property (big no-no) with a baggie of pot.  It had taken 10 months for them to formally charge him.  So in January, we went to court, he was found guilty and sentenced to 3 days in Juvie-big whoop.  But, the best thing that came out of it was that he had to serve 9 month probation, and his probation officer was GREAT!  She saw what was going on and was watching him, and all his cronies.  If she even caught a whiff of something fishy, she was ON IT.  Plus, she really made me feel like we were a team.  She understood my desperation to get him help and encouraged me to let her know if I saw him doing anything questionable.  Three months into it and he was locked up for a month with an order to go straight from detention into rehab.  She had compiled a laundry list of parole violations ranging from being 10 minutes late to out-patient drug counseling to a failed UA (urine analysis drug test).  Nothing horribly serious, but enough that the Judge could see that although our son was good at covering his tracks, he really did need some help.

Little did they know how right they were.  We found out later, that during that same period of time drug dealers had almost shot him!  They had jumped him right in our neighborhood, drove him to a remote location, beat him up and had a gun to his head!  He was saved by a curious stranger passing by with a spotlight.  True story!

That was the final trip to detention and the beginning of sobriety.  Today, he is loving his new life!

And this week we get the joy (yes, it is a joy again! Thank you, Jesus :) ) of spending a few days at the beach with him.  We will have a celebration honoring his amazing accomplishments and present him with this token...

We know that sobriety is very fragile.  It will be a life-long journey that he has to take one day at a time.  There may be set backs, but we praise God for His mercy and faithfulness to us and pray that you will not lose heart in yours.

I love the mandate that God gave in Joshua 1:7, "Only be strong and very courageous, ...do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go."


In His love,
Cath

Read about his celebration...

Making an impact...

This is such a sweet story about the way one family is making a difference and raising awareness...

The need is great, and this family wanted to let others know what they could do...love it!

Click here to see how this sweet family is making a difference!

This girl...

Was born on an unknown date, in a house that no longer exists

 somewhere in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia...

Was sent to an orphanage around the age of 6 or 7,

 along with her younger sister and brother, when her mother died...

This girl was sad...

                      This girl was afraid...

Became their constant guardian and protector, comforter and "mother"...

was separated from her baby brother because,

'it is too hard to find families willing to adopt more than two children at a time.' ...

This girl was broken...

                             This girl was loving....

                                                                               This girl was courageous...

Was adopted and brought to America when she was almost 9 years old...

did what she had always done...

 faced the challenge with all the courage she could muster!...

 threw herself into every struggle with the will to win...

and determined to find the good...

even when the pain came in floods and  threatened to drag her under...

This girl was hurting...

                             This girl was confused...

But she pressed on...

Never willing to let the pain that the past created,

 become the only future she would know...

This girl was determined...

                                   This girl was forgiving...

This girl is amazing...

                  This girl is strong...

                                                                This girl is wise beyond her years...

This girl is a woman I am so proud to know...

This girl is our daughter!

Making Progress-our first day in family therapy

Monday was our first day of family therapy for the MTFC program that Miss A is in.

Despite my struggle to deal with the anger that had been brewing in me for so long, I found myself saying a lot of really nice things about my daughter!

It kind of took me by surprise-in a good way :)

It reminded me that even though we have gone through some incredibly difficult things with her, she is still my daughter and I do really, really love her.

And maybe most importantly, I have not lost hope for her or our relationship.

The folks in the program continue to impress David and I with their compassion and understanding. 

Within the adoption realm there are a lot of families who are frustrated with therapists that don't 'get it'.  They fail to understand the complex issues surrounding children with trauma and attachment issues.  Therapists are hypnotized by a child's outward charms into the belief that all problems stem from a lack of proper parenting. The message that parents receive is that the issues they are dealing with originate from not doing enough to 'honor the child's culture' or 'understanding their pain'.  Unfortunately, the child hears this too and is armed with even more ammunition against his family.

We felt like we were going to face a firing squad when we left that morning.  But nothing could be farther from the truth!  Although the therapist was clearly empathic towards Miss A and all that she has gone through that has led to this place, she did not blame us or point a finger of correction at us in any way.

She seemed to recognize that we are doing our best and that we want nothing more than to see her find a sense of hope again.

We are suppose to implement at home a points/reward system that they use.  That way, when she comes home for visits and when she gets home, there wont be any confusing gaps or changes.  The program that they use will just flow over into our lives, too.

I have to admit that I'm a little skeptical.

Order, repetition and consistency are not my forte.

Also, what we do with one child, we will have to do with everyone, which makes the idea even more overwhelming.

But, I'm game.

Who knows, maybe it will be just the ticket for everyone-?