A Story of Deliverance - Part II

Give Them All To Jesus

Are you tired of chasing pretty rainbows?
Are you tired of spinning round and round?
Wrap up all those shattered dreams of your life
And at the feet of Jesus, lay them down.

He never said you'd only see sunshine,
He never said there would be no rain.
He only promised a heart full of singing
About the very thing that once brought pain.

Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus
Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, and broken toys.
Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus
And He will turn your sorrows into joy.

Matthew 11:28

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

This song re-surfaced Sunday as my SIL sang it at church. It is an Evie song that was popular back in the 70s and early 80s, I believe. (Evie came up in blog conversation a few weeks ago when I think it was Tammy of Family Doins went to a concert of hers). I hadn't heard it in years, but it fits so well with the current series Kevin and I are are doing on his wife's blog, Twenty Eight Celsius.

Please pray with us that this series will be used of God to reach someone who is feeling hopeless. We had shattered dreams. Losing a child in the sense that we did involves a death of dreams. There is a mourning that is very real. Our hearts were broken, and we didn't know the half of it.

As Kevin continued his story today, I was caught in a moment of disbelief. Disbelief that so much had happened. Disbelief that we didn't know what was happening. We knew things were very wrong, but not the extent of his lostness.

As he mentioned, all of Kev's friends in church were two years older than he and went off to college, leaving him pretty much alone at church. Not that he really wanted to be there, but his friends had given him a reason. I'll never forget the Sunday morning that God came to me in a very real way. I was in choir, searching the congregation for that blonde head. We had left him home, counting on his getting there in time. This was getting to be a very regular scenario. When I didn't see him that morning, I know my face showed my disappointment. I clearly remember sitting in the back pew that morning after the choir sang. God said to me that morning that I was hindering His spirit by my facial expressions in choir. I don't hide my feelings very well. He said that I was to relax, that Kev was in HIS hands, and that HE would bring Kevin back to Himself. I don't pretend that I never worried again, or that the road became smooth and easy. Much worse was ahead, but I had God's promise.

Kev mentioned that we didn't like his friends. That is very true. But we tried to befriend them. We often had extra guys for dinner - guys who really didn't have a home life to speak of. One of them was in a foster home. He stole checks from his foster mother's checkbook, wrote them to himself, and convinced Kev that they were child support checks and since he didn't have an account, would Kev please deposit them in his savings account and then he'd take the cash out. He was the one who, when he was eating with us one evening said, "So, you're the only family I know that eats supper together every night." I said, "I think that's very sad, and we do it because it's the only time we're all together." He answered with, "Oh, yeah, the bonding thing - I've heard about that."

There was the one who was also estranged from his mother - I don't know where his dad was. His mother had remarried and his stepfather and he didn't get along. I don't know where he was sleeping, but he ate with us on occasion. One night I said to him, "Rich, why don't you live with your mother?" His reply was, "She doesn't like me very much." I responded, "Well, I don't like Kevin very much right now either, but I love him and I won't kick him out."

I think it was Rich also who told me one day that I was like June Cleaver. I don't know if he meant it that way, but I took it as a compliment!

There was the one who was so charming - kind of like Eddie Haskell on "Leave it To Beaver." Too smooth! So smooth, in fact, that when he and Kevin got into trouble together, Kev always got caught and Tony didn't. I'm glad Kevin got caught, though it was very hard at the time.

I began to dread getting home in the evening and finding the answering machine blinking telling me that "your student missed one or more classes today." There was always an excuse - a substitute teacher made a mistake; he was late, so the Scantron bubble didn't get erased well enough and still registered him absent; etc. etc.

I wanted so badly to believe him. Everything I found and questioned him about had an answer - I could not prove anything, but I knew in my gut that it wasn't true.

Kev began to be very angry, and he was very strong. We abdicated at some point and figuratively threw up our hands, I guess. I still never forgot the promise.

I had read a lot of books, as I mentioned before. One about tough love sticks in my mind. There were all sorts of suggestions, none of which worked for us. The ones involving curfew may work for others, but not for us. You were supposed to put an alarm clock in the hall outside your bedroom at the time of curfew. Then you could peacefully go to sleep, knowing that if your young person came in on time, he/she would turn the alarm off and head straight to bed, so you would not be awakened. If they didn't come in and the alarm went off, you knew they hadn't followed the rule. Then what??

Another one was to make an arrangement with another family so that if curfew was broken, there would be a note on the door telling your rule-breaker that he/she was to go to the other family's home and they would take him in. Sure! If we had done that, we'd have never seen him again. I wasn't willing to risk that.

I rearranged my schedule so that I was always home to have dinner by 5:30. If it were later than that, he would be gone and we'd not see him that whole evening. I really wanted to keep that little connection.

The one friend he talks about who was the athletic star at school was the worst. I could not find it in my heart to have him around, and did not trust him at all. It turned out to be for very good reason.

TO BE CONTINUED...