I remember when I became a parent. I had a colicky baby and no time for
myself. I looked forward to when my
child didn’t need me as much. The
toddler stage showed me how much she was learning. One of the struggles was
learning to deal with emotions. Along
came another baby and now I had two children that needed me more then I needed
time to myself. I eventually got time to
myself, but each stage I could see how my children needed me. When they were 14 and 12, I got a full time
job to help support our family financial.
On my days off, I took advantage the best my exhausted body could and
spent as much time as I could to be their mother.. It was not enough to keep them from sliding
backwards. They made poor decisions. Not
only did my children suffer by working outside of the home, but my relationship
with my husband suffered. I quit my job to put my family first. I was amazed how quickly my marriage repaired
itself. My children were happy to have
me back, but undoing bad habits took some time.
While I was working, my youngest went through a horrible
bought of depression that lead to a spiritual warfare. We prayed for her and God did some amazing things,
but she battled daily with her mind and thoughts. Eventually her battles weren’t daily and
became weekly. Over time they became
more infrequent. She soon learned how to
recognize those thoughts that would lead her down to destruction and how to
turn them to better thoughts. For some reason, girls who were once Christians
that got messed up in evil believes seemed to be attracted to my daughter. She had a good heart to want to help them,
but she soon learned that they dragged her down with them instead of her being
able to pull them up. One girl was
cleaver and played on my daughters insecurities to try to steer her away from
her Christian moral believes. But God
was not going to let my daughter go. He
placed me in the right place at the right time to overhear what this girl was
telling my girls. It was enough for me
to realize that this is the last time this destructive girl will have access to
my girls. With wide eyes open, I could
see how she was working on other insecure girls too. Unfortunately, there was damage done to my
daughter. My little talks weren’t
working and again, the only thing I could do was pray as I watched her struggle
with her insecurities and social awkwardness.
Finally, after 9 months, she got sick of feeling the pain of her
insecurities and decided to first pull herself away from Facebook and then
later do a 40 days fast from friends.
She read her Bible everyday and spiritually she grew. She called it 40 days in the Wilderness as
she read Matthew, Mark and started Luke.
A few days after my daughter returned to youth group, the
past came back and bit my daughter in the behind. God revealed that my daughter had tried to reach out and communicate to this
damaging girl months after we removed her from her life. Yesterday this damaging girl responds to my
daughter’s message from months earlier.
I am thankful that it was revealed to us and we could stop it. But I am also torn because I can assume the
reasons why she did. I want to give her
the grace, but I also don’t want this damaging girl to win a piece of my daughter’s
morals. I don’t want her lesson about
sneaking behind the parent’s backs and getting away with it, to be a lesson
learned. Our daughter definitely lost
our trust! I now have to keep watch on
accounts and where she goes and who she is talking to.
After we removed this damaging girl from our families’
lives, we continued to pray for her. We
understood that we were not the family that could help her, but that under the
right circumstances God could place the right person in her life to help her
without them becoming a victim.
Again, I am left with the thoughts that my children still
need me. I am still teaching them
morals. I am still there to listen and
advise. I am still praying. I am still watching. My children are still my main mission.
