Parenting lessons, what not to do!

I have my sons permission to blog about some of our conversations that we have shared together in private. This isn't being done to bring light to their past in a way to show sorrow or ask for it.  I have a larger desire for them to know this isn't anything close to normal. For them to know I care, that I hear them and that I understand (as much as I can) about their past and how it impacts them today. A question that I get often from friends is "are they really that nice/good all the time?" My answer is always.  These boys are a direct example of how God is larger than any one thing, or person, on this earth.  What someone can do for harm, He can turn it for good.
I know more now than I ever did, that owners manuals don't come with kids. I will add this to the list of questions, along with why men cant figure out women! All we have to rely, on when it comes to parenting, is the tools in our tool box. Those tools are things we learned from our parents as they raised us, both the good and the bad.  I know many of us have said, "I'll never do or say that", only to find ourselves eating those words later in life. We also have those things we learned from our friends' parents.  Many times we all wished our parents did this or that, or didn't do something-comparing them to our friends' parents. Little did we know that they were doing the same thing with ours!!  We can learn new ways to learn to use our tools, but all in all we still have the same tools in which to parent.
 When it comes to parenting, I have been overwhelmed with another thing. My parents! Many times over the past 4 months I have thought of my mom and dad parenting me.  How did they do that? I have a huge appreciation for the stressful times they made it through and for the man they made me into!

So now to me as a parent. I have found myself realizing more these past few weeks that I need to be reminded of what these two precious young men went through.  It is their foundation, it forms their decisions, it guides their path.....but most of all... it helps me to change all of that as their father. People treat their pets better than what they experienced.
Here is some of their experience.....
-Allowed to eat two things for dinner Ramon Noodles or rice.
-Allowed 5 mins to eat their food-no matter how hot it was.
-Many times not given food, it was used as a form of punishment. This went so far that the boys were starving and sneaking food in their pants pockets. Their mom found out and cut out all the pockets in their pants!
-Doing "The Wall" (standing with your nose on the wall and lifting your heals off the floor) was not only a form of punishment, but used as a containment tool like an animal.  On the wall most of the time or in their bed room.
-Rigging their bedroom door with a bell, to notify them that they opened the door.  All hell broke loose if this happened, so even if you needed to use the bathroom at night-nope!
-Being told over and over that you are stupid, cant accomplish anything and that you are worthless.
-Not getting Christmas presents or birthday presents. Now I know many families who cant do this. But the presents were exchanged back and forth between the parents in front of the boys.
-Not ever allowed in the house when the parents were not there, so they had to leave for school when they left for work. The same after school.  This caused the boys to find somewhere to go for hours before school started and after it was over.  Rain, Snow, Heat-didn't matter...they were outside.
-Summer time when school was not in session, they were gone from early morning till late evening on their own. No place to go, no money or food to eat.
-If one of the parents had to wake up at 3:00 am to get ready for work-she was mad that the boys were sleeping still....so she woke them up and made them "do the wall".
-There was screaming, name calling, degrading words spoken to them daily.
-There also was the abuse.

All of this above is a reminder to me that these boys have been traumatized daily for years and years. Through all that they trust me, they love me, they allow me to love them, to care for them, to guide them, to spend time with them, to share life with them and to be their father! They have been a true blessing in my life so far and we have our whole lives ahead of us. They are a answer to my prayers!

This house, this neighborhood, this church community will never be the same because of these two amazing boys.

People can still ask if they are really this good?
My new answer is "you don't even get to experience the level of good these boys really are!"

The thought of what I would say or do if I ran into their mother has always been a question in my head. I have thought of many different reactions and responses as you can imagine.
The one that is giving me a sense of peace in my heart is the one you can pray for it to happen if I do see her. I will look her in the eye and tell her that I do not understand what (or how) things that happened the first 15 years of these young boys life. But that these are the most amazing young men I have ever met, and that they are my sons, my amazing sons who were given to me by the Lord. I also want to thank her because she did have a part in this whole craziness. I know that might sound odd, but its true.

You can pray that God heals the wounds of the past for all of us. And that He continues to give us comfort and guidance in the days to come.

Three months

It has been a little over three months since my life changed forever.

For years and years I have dreamed of being married and being a father. I actually had a goal to accomplish both by the time I was 30. As year 30 came around I remember thinking to myself that this goal wouldn't really play out like I wanted it to. After a while I was content with my life as it was, but I was always wanting a family. The girls I dated didn't pan out into wife material for me, so I started to pray about being a father. Maybe it wasn't in God's plan for me to be married, but there are plenty of children in this world who need a father. We are called to help with widows and be a father to the fatherless. This thought started to grow in me more and more. I volunteered with Safe Families which is a temporary foster program that helps families and children. Their main goal was to reunite the children back with the families-which I was fine with, I was content doing my part. Little did I know that by being faithful in serving this organization and these children, my life would soon change.

I remember the call like it was yesterday. It was like a normal call from Safe families...I have a child in need, can you help? This time it was different. It was children, not child and I was being asked to consider a long term placement, maybe even adoption. It was a lot to take in, I mean it was something that I longed for-but it still was a large task. I said I would need time to pray, and they were in agreement. Back and forth the pulling and fighting began between my heart and my head. I needed it to make sense, everything needed to line up just right but I couldn't get it to. After a few weeks, I called Safe Families on the night before I was going to meet the boys. I explained how I wasn't able to meet the boys and how I didn't think this was the right time for me. She asked what was going on, and I explained that I didn't know how I was going to financially do it. I didn't know what it was going to cost to raise two 15 year old boys, and that I would loose a roommate if I did this. So I would have less income than I did currently with two more mouths to feed and care for. Some of it was my reasoning and logic but there was a reality piece to this that was so unknown. She asked me to pray and that maybe I was to be involved in some other way. I prayed and felt comfortable meeting the boys.

Just to be a mentor, I kept telling myself over and over again as I walked up to the door to pick them up. As the front door opened, God opened the door of my heart forever. As I met these two young men I could sense that something bigger was about to happen. Looking back I never knew what it was going to be, and surely didn't think we would be where we are today-but from the moment we met, I knew God was at work.

The next phase happened so quickly that you would have thought it was months later. But after a few weeks of hanging out, they moved it. Soon we were moving down the road of adoption. I still had no idea how this was all going to work out, let alone how the finances would happen. But I did know that all I needed to do was to trust God and allow him to work in me. And work he did!

The work that the Lord did by mending our hearts as one family, in such a short period of time, has been hard to describe.
It has been as if we have been together for years.
On October 3rd, our final adoption hearing, the court will catch up with what we all three of us already know....We are family!

I love those boys as if they came from a part of me.

We might not share the same blood, but we do share the same heart!

Will you help?

This issue has been weighing on my heart for months now, so here we go.

How far are you willing to go to help others? I think my initial instinct would be "I would do anything to help others." Then as I think about it more, I would have to say that I start to weigh my willingness to help everyone with the level of comfort I would need to give up. Does that make sense? I mean we are not all selling our homes and using every penny to help those in need, so there is a line drawn somewhere. If you agree with me, then the issue isn't about helping others-but more about our willingness to give up comfort!

So if someone needed you to hold the door open for them, not much comfort is being given up-5 seconds maybe, you would help them. I would guess that a high percentage of people would be willing to help someone in that way. What if someone needs you to help them start their car? Now the comfort level is getting a little higher. Time is a factor, is the person safe, can you really help them out, will I be late doing whatever is next, etc. All those comfort thoughts come into play when you make your decision to help. I am guessing that we are getting closer to a 50-50 chance of helping someone out. Most of us rationalize that we are already "good" people or "doing our part" with something else in our life-which allows us off the hook when we say "sorry I cant help you right now"! Is that rationale really something, or is it our way of justifying things?

So what is it about our comfort zone that determines what we are willing to do or not do. Were called to help the least of these, how does that work into our comfort determination? Everyone in need is someones mother or father, daughter or son, etc. Is this how we would want someone to respond to our mother who asked for help? Or even more the mother who has given up on asking others to help and doesn't know where to turn any longer?

What will it take to no longer allow our comfort meter to determine when, who, and how we help those in need around us. Do Christ followers look different than non believers when it comes to who lends a hand? I know what I would like that answer to be-just not sure that makes it true.

It makes me wonder if the Barna institute is correct that 85% of Americans would consider themselves Christians, if just a portion of them reached out and helped someone-wouldn't this country or our communities look different?

Next time you are asked for help......How will you respond?