Painful Love...

January 6, 2010
For about a week and a half I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to write about one of the hardest things for me since arriving here. I haven’t written much about rough days mainly because I usually write 1-2 days after the event occurred, and at that point, I don’t want to think about the rough day again or it no longer seems like a big deal. However, this time, the pain was deep enough to share, on an anonymous basis. I don’t want to share this child’s identity because, well, if it were me I wouldn’t want my mistakes broadcast to the world. But since the waves caused by this have changed the dynamics of our home, I figured you should know about it, at least from a bird’s eye view.

I haven’t mentioned this before, but over my time here, I’ve had a few things “disappear” from my room. Nothing major, but enough for me to notice things are gone each time. At first I thought I had just misplaced the items, and perhaps some I did, but there were some that I knew exactly where they were and the next time I came into my room they were gone. Well, Uncle told me to keep my room locked at all times because of this, and I had no idea who to suspect, and it hurt me so much that I couldn’t trust any of the kids to come into my room since I had no idea who was taking things.

Christmas day, this climaxed with a cell phone being stolen at church. Now, at the time we had no idea one of our kids was involved, but in the ensuing chaos tumbling through the next few days, we came to the knowledge that one of our kids was involved. Well, actually, the mastermind behind the elaborate scheme, which was a way to rectify something else they had taken in the past from someone outside the home. Funny how sin always drags us deeper and deeper to cover our tracks.

After finding out who was responsible, Uncle had the tough job of deciding what to do. As this wasn’t the only thing this person had taken, and many chances had been given even before I arrived, he finally came to the decision that this child needed to move back home with their mother. I think it might have been the hardest example of love that I’ve ever been part of. As this was one of the older children, they were fully conscious that what they were doing was wrong, and Uncle realized that having the older children doing things like that will only teach the younger kids to do the same in time and will only escalate. So, this child moved home the next day after Uncle met with their mom to explain what all had happened with a full confession from the child.

Even though this child will live at home now, Uncle will still provide for their school fees so that they can finish school as long as they keep their grades up. And if we see a change in their heart, Uncle’s willing to consider letting them come back here to live after a few months. I guess that while it was really hard, it was a huge learning lesson for the kids still here. We talked for a long time the other night about how real love isn’t letting us do whatever we want to do, but rather draws us nearer to God, the true source of love. And if sin is standing in the way, then allowing that sin to continue to grow is not love as it pushes us farther and farther from the only source of love, Jesus himself. But in that, there is grace, and Jesus chooses to forgive us and has already forgiven us, but as a Father he will discipline us when we walk away. I think that the kids here have a better grasp of God’s love in discipline now and a more real understanding of the darkness of sin.

I’m still struggling to process my emotions over this, as I found out about most of it after the fact and it felt kind of like a landslide that I was caught in and was powerless to help. I fully believe that Uncle made the right decision in sending this child home and I pray that God changes this child’s heart but it is hard knowing that many of them don’t have the same Christian influences at home, so the battle is even harder there. Not that a rough background is an excuse for anyone’s sin, especially the older kids who have been here for a long time, but it’s a little easier to understand their actions when you think about where these kids have come from. It’s sad, though, because it’s made me think twice about trusting any of the kids, but as one of the other kids said, “at some point we have to just trust each other.” Marvelous wisdom from a young teenager! So, when you go to bed tonight, pray that God would move here in the wake of things and that his Holy Spirit would be alive and active in convicting us when we go astray. Because when we no longer wage battle against sin and don’t feel that gentle stir urging us to do right, well, that’s when we’re in serious trouble...

*It's been a few days since I wrote this, and I've seen this child at church a few times, and we got to talk about this incident and it helped heal some of the relationship there. Hopefully as God continues to move, that trust can grow again as well!