Tuesday

It was a rough morning.

I’m “that” mom.  The one that takes off the bedroom door because today disobedience looked like locking it just one more time.  The one that believes that only big reminders will stick with you enough to maybe, just maybe, have an impact next time you are trying to decide whether or not to obey.  And when 16 year old Y tests the line every time I turn around, I just have to do something.

She is a threatener… “I’m going to leave.  Then I’m just not going to eat.  Well, I didn’t want a door anyway.”  Fine then.  So after the door scenario she started with the normal… “Susana, I’m leaving here.”  Okay Y… where are going?  Thinking she was joking around like normal or just frustrated with me for actually doing what I said I would do.

But sitting in the living room I heard furniture moving around and went back to check.  Her whole room was getting thrown piece by piece into a suitcase and she was sobbing like I’ve never seen before.  This wasn’t a show.  This was real, heart-level pain.  This was guilt and shame and despair and depression.  She wanted to stay but felt like she just couldn’t.  It wasn’t about the door, but that was the catalyst.

When you’ve been told for your whole life that you’re worthless and that you are disobedient and that you’ll never change, when you’ve been hit and yelled at, you don’t know how to accept discipline and how to accept love.  She was convinced for those few hours that she would forever make life hard on everyone, that she would never be able to change, that leaving J with us was a better option that trying to be her mom, that she really didn’t want to even be alive anymore.

So yeah.  It was rough.  We prayed, a lot.  And we talked.  And she didn’t believe much of what I said, but I get that.  She was so overwhelmed and just so sad.  But in the end I didn’t have to call Mike to come sit in front of the gate.  She calmed down and is okay now.  But oh how we need the power of Jesus to bring change and hope and joy.  Please pray for her to know and really believe the love of God and feel the freedom of that.