The Meeting

Over the last year I have driven countless miles back and forth to Rehabs, well known and long established. These visits consisted of not much more than a 30 minute visitation routine with my son. We’d chat about the food, his roommates or maybe the current sports game. There was always the litany of promises about coming home and staying clean. Three or Four days later after he had detoxed, I’d make the drive one more time to bring him home. It was becoming an endless circle that was going nowhere.

Finally when he “sectioned” himself in September, the endless circle came to an end. There were no visits during the three weeks he was there. A few phone calls, but no visits, one of the calls came with a question…

“Mom will you come to a family meeting”

Now this was a first, a family meeting with a counselor.

“Yes of course we’ll come”

A day or so later his counselor called to set the appointment. Daniel seemed truly interested in my son’s well being and in his success. We would meet on Wednesday night.

All day I wondered what this meeting would be like, what would we hear.

We arrived at the appointed time, and sat in the long locked hallway waiting to meet Daniel and my son. A knot grew in my stomach as I waited to see him.

Would he once again try to manipulate us?

Would I cave in?

Would I be strong?

“Lord God give me your strength, give me your wisdom to know what to do, how to respond, help me to listen and to show love.”

I silently prayed.

A tall middle-aged man approached us and introduced himself as Daniel and we were asked to follow him. We stood and began the long walk through many locked doors, each time Daniel swiping his card to gain entry. Five, six locked doors later we were pointed to a door way to a small conference room. This last hallway we walked through it was apparent these were the patient’s rooms, two or three beds in each room,

White sheets

White blankets

White walls.

I quickly scoured the rooms for some semblance of my son’s existence there. As we entered the conference room, Daniel said, “we just came through your son’s unit.” My mother’s heart already knew it to be so.

I asked “will he be joining us?”

"Eventually", Daniel said.

He sat there with a huge file folder with my son’s picture on it, thick with all kinds of documents. Had it been passed from Rehab to Rehab or was this just from the last three weeks, I wondered but never asked. He began by asking us “tell me your story”

I didn’t even know where to begin, what actually constitutes the beginning? We rambled for what seemed like an eternity re-living the past 11 years, moving from heart ache to heart ache. Loss upon loss, rehab story after rehab story till now. To the current line we have drawn in the concrete that he could not come home again. Our marriage was being strained; our little boy needed to stay safe and didn’t need to see his big brother live like this anymore.

A hard solid line.

No longer is one drawn in sand that can get blown away by manipulation or fear but one that is solidly formed.

"So where does he go from here? What are his choices? Are there choices?"

Daniel told us our son had chosen to go to a Sober House in the town just next to us. He chose this over a Half Way house. The Half way house comes with more rules, but with more helps. The sober living is less structured and with very few helps and with a price tag. One my son could not afford completely. Daniel also felt there was more of a risk for failure in a sober house because of the freedom attached to it.

Yes we would try to talk him into the Half Way house we told Daniel; obviously it would be the better choice.

A few minutes later my son walked in the room, after hugs and the “its so good to see you” the hard stuff began…

Daniel with my sons permission began to tell us about the hard work he had done, that most of the men could never get the place he had, he had began the emotional piece of his recovery. That he felt he found that place in his life where it all spiraled out of control and drugs were the only answer to cover the pain. As my son through tears uttered the words of shame and deep wounding tears filled my eyes.

I knew. I knew this would be the place.

My heart hurt deeply for him as he choked back the pain.

“let it out baby, let it out, It’s ok, I’m ok, your loved, so loved, to hell with who your father is or isn’t’, you are my son! Rick has longed to be your father, let him, let him in”.

Words of “Rick please forgive me for never letting you in” tumbled out of his mouth as he sobbed. The awful deep pain, spilled out, finally released.

In those awkward quiet moments I prayed in my spirit

“heal my son, Lord I lift him up to you; heal my son” .

The meeting ended, his choice stayed with the sober house, which would begin two days later. He was transported to the sober house calling me that he had arrived and would I bring him some supplies.

“Of course, I’ll stop to get you some things and be there after work”

30 days have passed, he’s still sober, he asked to get moved to a different sober house as there was drug activity in the house and he wanted nothing to do with it. The new house has more structure, more rules.

The meeting gave my heart hope, that he may just make it. That God will indeed heal my son, and his life will be a testimony that God can use to show His glory and His redemptive power.

"Oh Lord let be so."

Clearing out the Selfish Heart

Two Sunday’s ago the adult Sunday school class I’m attending challenged us to read I Corinthians 13 every day for the next 30 days. Reading a familiar text over and over again can cause one to think twice about the task, but God clearly had something in mind and I needed to take this challenge.

I began the 30 days with prayer asking God to open my eyes beyond the norm, beyond what I thought I knew of this chapter to what He wanted me to see.

Don’t,
let me repeat that

Don’t ask God to reveal to you such things unless you’re ready to really see them.

That first week I read the whole of the text but God stopped my pondering those first few days to use the first three verses to clear away my human efforts of pleasing God. Or so I thought…

but it was more about pleasing myself.

1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

God spoke directly to my spirit “make sure your not just talking the talk” How many times have I spoke well, spoke His word, gave His truth but I was acting out of a self righteousness, and there was no love? Anytime that it was about me, and not about His love it meant nothing, it was nothing but noise. An awful noise at that

.

2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

This one bit me hard… a few years ago God had revealed to me that I do in fact have this gift, the gift of prophecy and it’s a gift that can be used to puff oneself up quite easily. By stating that I have such a gift, it means I have a God given ability to edify, exhort, and comfort (I Corinthians 14:3); and to help build up or strengthen; So with that, if I do any of that without pointing to God, or doing so applying His love, I truly am nothing. Most likely I’ll come across as some harsh know it all. I must have Christ’s love in me, to pour it out along side this. How many times have I used this gift the wrong way, God revealed to me that I am guilty of such and again a time of confession before Him to clear it out, to begin again with love, His love.

3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing

Am I giving out of a heart of love or am I giving so others will know I gave something, maybe even something big. This too hit me hard, I was convicted of a time I did just that. I had to ask God to forgive my attitude, my selfishness and to please see my gift now as being given in love. It’s never too late to change your heart and let love be the motive.

These three verses were hard! If you haven’t done so, pray them before God, ask Him to use them to clear out the selfishness from your heart. To replace it with His love, a deep, all consuming, unconditional love.

Sectioned

I had no clue what the term “sectioned” meant. I understand its use when you’re talking about an orange, but not how my son used it. He called me Monday morning and told me he was going to section himself before the courts on Tuesday. After our conversation I went to my computer to find out what he meant. What was he about to do?

Section 35 in the MA General Laws allows a family member or oneself to appear before a judge and ask for ones child, spouse or oneself to be “committed”. Due to alcoholism/drug abuse and conjoined with the fear of the person to be committed harming one’s self or someone else.

Whew… the process scared me, I’m sure it must have scared my son as he submitted to such a thing. Matter of fact as he stood before the judge and admitted to his drug use/abuse and his inability to remain clean I was told he broke out in a sweat, in fear of the unknown. Once the judge heard him, he granted his “section”, the court guards came;

handcuffed him, placed him in shackles and put him in a holding cell until a place could be found in a long term program.

I heard nothing from him after 1:00PM on that day. Just before he entered the court room he called me to say
“I love you mom…I know I’m doing the right thing”.

“Yes you are baby” is all I could choke out.

He said he’d call me as soon as he could to let me know where he ended up.
Later that afternoon I heard from my niece, she had gotten a message from him through his friend that was with him at the time of the section. He was going to be placed in a program but did not know where. I hung up the phone and the choked back emotions from earlier just poured out of me. I sobbed most of the ride home.

The call came at about 9AM next morning, my son called to let me know where he was and what I could bring him;
5 t-shirts
5 pairs of socks
5 pairs of underwear

“No clothes? What are you wearing? I asked.

“Just scrubs are all we’re allowed for the first 5 days. I can’t have any real clothes till I’m in the next step. And mom, I can’t have any visitors either.”
Ever? I responded.

“No, just not until the next step”.

Ok… I said only to myself, I can deal with that. Not that I need to be there every waking minute, because that quite frankly is exhausting in and of itself. But a mom needs to see they’re child’s face every once and again. I’m that way with my two other adult children. If I haven’t seen them in awhile I make every effort to make a date!

After work that day I headed to the location of the program, I knew exactly where it was, yet had no clue that that is what was in those buildings. And they are just 5 miles from my home. (Unlike the other facilities that he has been in that have been a 45 plus minute drive each way) As I pulled up to the building I had no clue where to go, what door would be the one I should go into, they were all the same with no labeling.

White doors no windows…

As I climbed out of my car two women came out of the building, I so didn’t want to ask for help because that would mean telling them my son was in there. But I did, the kindness on their faces helped me as I choked out the short version. I was pointed to the door right in front of my car. No long walk carrying his underwear… good.

I entered into a very sterile environment where doors lock behind you with a thud and a loud buzz. I was asked to take a seat and that someone from his unit would be right with me. Unbeknown to me the very wall that the chair I sat in, my son was on the other side sitting in a chair against the same wall. As I logged in his belongings;

5 t-shirts
5 pairs of socks
5 pairs of underwear
one pack of cigarettes
and 11 dollars in cash

a wave of nausea swept across me and again that choked felling came over me. The woman doing the intake looked up at me and said…

”I did your sons intake yesterday…such a nice young man. You did good momma, you did good.”

I thought I would break down and sob like a little baby right then and there. But instead I let out a slow exhale to keep myself from breaking down. I smiled back at her and said
“he is a good boy, he just needs to get through this”

Moments later I was heading out the door with an empty suitcase, stumbling back to my car filled with more emotions that I can even get down on paper. I hear someone knocking on a window…

did I forget something…

I look over my left shoulder back at the door I just came through.. no window, I look to my right and there, standing in the window leaning on the very wall I had just been sitting against was my son…. waiting on his side of the locked doors to receive his belongings. I blow him a kiss and mouth “be good”, he blows me one as well and gives me the thumbs up sign.

Just past him I see another face in the window, it’s a face I recognize from somewhere… I look at the older man with what must have been a look of familiarity I look back at my son then again to the older man. I think he too realizes I think he is familiar. Someone inside the room must have called my son to collect his belongings because he steps away from the window… the older man looks at me for one more moment our eyes locked on each other, then he reaches up and slowly pulls the window shade down.

I climb into my car and start the engine… while pictures of recent memories start to fill my head…

I remember him…

I back the car out of the parking spot and begin the climb up the hill to get back out on the street when it hits me…

He was there at the very first detox program my son was in. He was in his early 60’s, he had been in and out of programs most of his adult life battling addiction. I remember my son telling me all about him the day I picked him up. I had to pull the car over I was nearly convulsing with sobs as I prayed in my spirit

“Not my son Lord, Not my son” Break the cycle of addiction… break him free from the demons that have ensnared him. Oh God please I beg you heal my son.

These last 10 months have been such a difficult journey. The fear of the unknown can eat away at you if you let it. I have had to hold fast to Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future

. I have prayed that over my son and claimed its truths to quiet my anxious heart. I prayed it over and over again that night. Committing Him to God, lifting Him to the one who Heals.

I don’t know what these next months hold, but I do know the One who holds them. He holds me and He holds my son, and He holds the man in the window.

Standing Firm in Tough Love

This weekend was difficult as I was faced with my son’s homelessness. His addictions and behaviors have burned yet another bridge for him, this time he lost much himself as a few of his things were thrown out on the street, and the rest he hasn’t been able to retrieve.

Loss…

Fear…

Two emotions that tug at a mothers heart when her child is in need. Knowing that my child is struggling with these things nearly buckled my resolve. Standing firm in the moment when the call came “mom can I just stay there tonight”. Knowing full well that one night would have turned into two, then a week, maybe a month. And all that we have chosen to guard against would have come crashing down on us once again.

The phone slammed down on us as we said “I’m sorry but you just can’t”

Numerous calls came, calls we would not answer. About 30 minutes later, the next call came and he said “I know I can’t stay but can you help me, I’m going to go back to a rehab and I will need a few things”. Relieved that our resolve to hold fast when my heart strings were pulled taunt and ready to break gave my heart a lift.

“Yes, I can help you with that, but I couldn’t let you back here, because it wouldn’t have been good for you or for us” I said. “I know mom, I know I need to do this to get my life back on track”

Back on track… where did it go off track? How did it go off track? If only I could answer those questions. If I could trace back to the very moment that the first choice was made to delve into the world of drugs, gangs, stealing, and all that has followed after it. I would go back in time and hold him so tight that he couldn’t go where ever it was that he went.

But there is no such thing as a “do over”. We don’t get to go back and rework the mistakes or retake different steps. We have only today, with its current 24 hours of promise. No more, and sometimes less. What he will make of this 24 hours is what is important, and what I contribute to it in the form of tough love applied firmly, or cowardly.

( Yes I must admit that yesterday while the phone calls came one after the other I hid in the basement. It was my only recourse as my mother’s heart was breaking. It was the only way I could keep from answering the phone. ) I am so very thankful to God that in my time of wavering He was there (in the basement) with me, helping me hang tough. Just as He must have the night His son, begging in prayer on his knees...

“Please if it’s at all possible, take this cup from me” (Matt 26:39 my paraphrase).

He understands what it is like to have your son ask for what seems like a sensible request…

"really Father do I have to go to the cross, isn’t there some other way"?

"Mom why can’t I stay just one night?"

Sensible requests, but had God not shown tough love you and I would not be able to have entrance into His presence. And If I don’t show tough love, my son may end up standing before God sooner than I want to think.

Lord Help me to do the hard stuff, to love just as you did that night your son came to you. Help me to see beyond the moment and see what is at stake. Help me to stand firm.

A Deep Well

John 4: 7 - 15
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.

"

Much like the Samaritan women, I desire to be filled with the living water. A water so satisfying that once you have been filled with it you will no longer thirst for anything else.

I know that I have drank of it, its liquid sweetness has quench my soul so many times. There have been those times of deepest despair over loved ones, or times of loneliness where its depths have kept me afloat. Where that spring inside of me seemed to reproduce itself until I felt full and refreshed.
But here I am in a desert, dry, hot and seemingly unending. I know intellectually that the spring of living water still exists within me, and yet I think it has sunk somewhere in a deep chasm unable to flow up and outward.

A number of years ago we had dug a shallow well for our home. The well was nearly 35 feet deep and we had hit a slow spring. Within no time the well seemed to sustain ten feet of water at all times, even with our family of 5’s constant use of showers, dishes and laundry. But after 6 months of use, the well went dry. No matter how many times we would prime the pump we could barely get enough water to wash the dishes by hand. After a few weeks we realized we had to abandon that well. Its shallow spring had dried up in the awful heat of the summer. Its source not deep enough or plenty enough to be sustained.

We went Five long months between wells. During that time I lugged dishes back and forth to my parents house, we showered there and I did my laundry there, until we could afford to have an Artesian well drilled. We learned a valuable lesson about not drilling the deep well the first time.

I still remember the day we had the Artesian well drilled. I was so excited!!! I couldn’t wait to turn the faucet on or take a shower! The drill went 345 feet into the ground before it found a vein of water and the water it found came up at 60 gallons a minute. A Gold Mine! There was nothing like it in the summer. Coming from those depths it was COLD and refreshing. Never again did we run out of water, and the only time we had to re-prime the pump was when it got hit by lightening. The well drillers came in, replaced the motor and once again fresh cold water came from its depths. The water… it never dried up, it was there. It just needed a new way to get pumped out.

Thank goodness I’m not like the first well, shallow and easily drained completely dry, never to be of any use again. The well of Living Water in me right now has gotten hit by lightening so it seems. My motor burned up, but its refreshing sustaining life giving supply is still there. It’s the gap in time, waiting for the new motor to kick in, so its cool sweetness can once again course through my spirit that has me constantly on my knees pleading with God to let it begin. He lets us go through these dry times so we will know just how deep the well is. That it’s supply never runs out, to maybe remind us that shallow wells (shallow faith, shallow Christianity) can never compare to the deep well of living water he places inside of us.

Come Lord Jesus, replace the motor with a fresh anointing of your Holy Spirit and let the waters flow.
.

Letting go of the Prodigal

The roller-coaster ride of the past year has taken its toll on my heart. The havoc that my son’s addiction has wreaked on our family has hit a wall. So many times we have waved a magic wand over the pain and losses we have endured.

Poof… all gone.

Pushing aside the anger, and dusting it over with forgiveness, making every effort to live at peace, to offer another chance… and another…and another.

We verbally tell ourselves that the new items that have come up missing are just “things” we can replace things. He’s still alive, he wants to stay clean; he promises he won’t go back, he’ll get our stuff back. The stuff never comes back, it never gets replaced, and the tangled realities of staying clean and alive are constantly on the cusp of extinction.

I have wrestled for so long with this mother’s heart that just can’t let go of her son.

Much the same way the father in the story of the Prodigal must have. He must have seen it coming, the son becoming restless and dissatisfied with his life, looking for a “better one” or just to do it “my way”. How that father’s heart must have broke when the son demanded his share of the inheritance and his wanting to depart immediately. All that the father had worked for, built, planted, watched over to be divided, cashed out and handed over to a young man who wanted to squander it.

My heart too has broken, so many sweet things that were treasured by us, are now gone. Gifts, tools, toys, money, so very much money has walked away with the son who just has to live his way. Some of which was to be his inheritance, some of which was meant for his siblings. Such sadness has gripped me over all the losses. It’s hard to avoid it now. I’ve had to let go of him, my hands are completely open and have given him over to himself.

My greatest fear … will I be able to be like the father of the prodigal… when he finally hits bottom and truly desires to put it all away, wins over the addictions, gets real help and wants to come back to his family, Will I be willing to run when I see him far off to greet him? My hope is that God will ready my heart, that He will let me know when it is time to fling off the hurt, and run…

John 15: 20…"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

Clean/Unclean

By the above title you are probably worried that I’m about to jump into some dissertation of Levitical Law. Not to worry I will spare both of us from such an undertaking…

For many months God has been prodding me to write on a very difficult subject, and last night He revealed to me that He has brought me to a place where I can start this, a place of absolute trust in Him. At first I thought it was just that I have distanced myself from the pain enough not to shed gallons of tears over yet another difficult time. Yet last night the whisper of His voice telling me, it’s not distance you’re experiencing, its complete trust in me in this matter. A place I never thought I’d get to.

It only makes sense to back track a bit to bring you up to speed to how I got to this place of absolute trust, so get your cup of coffee, tea or cold drink of choice and sit with me for a bit.

November 2009 seems like a life time ago, but it was then we discovered that my 22 year old son was addicted to heroin. He’s not been a model child, so this isn’t some “High School Honor Roll, Star Athlete goes to drugs” story. This has been a long painful decline that crashes into a drug addiction that you think only happens in Hollywood.

It was a rainy Saturday, my son had been gone for a few days, and for some reason my husband and I had decided to re-arrange his room. We started to take the bed apart so we could move it and there between the mattresses was a hypodermic needle.

My head started whirling in twenty different directions as I started putting all the puzzle pieces together, his excessive need for money on a daily basis, things had started disappearing, my silverware draw was becoming deplete of spoons, and there were those spoons I had found in the garage with burn marks on them… a hundred thoughts and fragments of conversations and observances came crashing around me and I fell in a heap on the floor sobbing uncontrollably for what seemed like hours.

These last nine months have been a roller coaster of Rehabs, Detox, fighting with Insurance Companies, finding programs that would take him, promises, failures to keep promises, more things missing, another trip to detox and yet another. I could fill numerous pages worth of text with all that has taken place, and one day I will write that book. But for now I will bring you back up to today, to last night after 5 months of being “clean” hence the title of this writing, to the phone call I received at 5:03pm at which time I heard the following

“Mom, I need you to bring me to the hospital.”

This was not the first time I had heard those words, but it was the first time I had heard them without having to beg him for days to get help. Baby steps… maybe

On the ride to the hospital he said “why did I go back? I was doing so good, why?” somewhere inside me my heart broke for him as he struggled with this, but I also heard a voice telling me; he’s in my hands, he’s always been in my hands.

Me and God have struggled over who gets to fix my son. It’s been a tug of war in true biblical Joshua fashion. I must tell you these past five months of “clean” it has been a delight to put down the “rope” and not feel like I had to tug it back from God. He (God) has proven Himself faithful to me countless times on my son’s behalf and as I dropped my son off at the hospital last night at 6:30pm I felt no need to pick the “rope” up. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God, the Great Physician had him in His care.

Trials will come, over and over again; the same trial may befall you. Yet each time it comes God is there, waiting for us to put down the “rope”, to trust Him completely. I praise Him this morning as I have NO desire to fix my son; my desire is to let God fix Him, in His time, in His way.

Unclean… and only God can make Him clean.