There are many things I do not understand. And I'm fine with that. We're not meant to understand everything ~ that's where faith steps in. But there are those things that are just unacceptable.

Lying, for example. Especially lying about a child to make gains for yourself or to make yourself look like the "injured" party. What is that teaching the child? It's ok to lie if you're an adult? It's ok to lie if you need to make someone look bad? It's ok to lie so you can get ahead? Have you ever stopped and thought about the volumes your actions speak about your character? Nothing you can do or say after that will ever erase the picture someone has now created of you and the person you are. And even if the people around you believe the lies you've said at that time, does it really matter? Because the One that REALLY matters, already knows the truth. God has seen what you've done to that child. He has heard the lies you've told. He has seen your heart and known your motives for wanting to hurt that child with your lies.

Lies. I hate lies. I hate being lied to. I hate being lied about. I would never dream of lying about anyone in my family to make myself look better or to make others turn on another family member. So why is it that you feel compelled to do so? What are you hoping to gain?

After what I've lived through most of my life but especially the past couple years, you'd think that you would be happy for me. Overjoyed that FINALLY I'm able to get justice, to find peace, to start healing. And yet at the peak of it all, when it was the most painful, you chose that time to knock me down even further. To turn your back on me and continue stabbing. Why? And then you turn around and tell lie on top of lie and blame this and that on me. When I've sat here for the past year and those before, doing absolutely nothing to you. I'm not fighting back and yet you keep swinging. In going through all my therapy and my support groups, I've learned to deal with the past and I've healed a great deal of the wounds. NOTHING you can do or say, can reopen them. I've learned to ignore you. I've let you go. I've let him go, too.

You can continue to attack me. Continue to lie about me. Continue to try and rip apart my relationships with my family. Continue to tear apart my character. Say what you want. I keep hearing about it.

I DON'T CARE. God brought this to the light. He has given me the justice and brought my healing. Nothing either of you do, can change that. Nothing either of you say can steal it away. NOTHING. When will it get through to you?

I hope you're prepared for when it all falls in on you. What you give out always comes back to you...whether it was good or bad.

I had high hopes when Daughter came home to stay. I held tight to the hope that she would put to use all she had learned, that as a family we would be healed. Those hopes were crushed and destroyed. Several times in the past month.

Things were going so well. I should've known. I should've seen it coming. But love is blind, is it not? Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes and endures all things. That is what scripture tells us. That's what I know and believe. As a mom, Love is what I DO.

I have to say I am impressed with the change in her. She is not defiant or angry. She does her chores...though it's usually on her time, not mine. But they get done. When something is bothering her, she is able to sit down with one of us and talk about it and even ask for input. She's often thinking of others and not focused on herself anymore. There is so much good in her and about her now. There always was but somewhere along the way, she lost it. No. It was stolen from her by a demon. A demon known as Depression. He stole so much from her, from her life, from us.

So while many things are very good.......there are still things that are terribly wrong. I'm standing at a place where I need to make a major decision...yet again. I am constantly wrestling with the decision day after day. It's tearing my heart apart. I don't want to make a mistake.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

I gave the last decision to Him. I leaned on Him even though I didn't understand or even know if I was doing what I should be. I trusted Daughter to Him and everything turned out right. This time is different. This time is harder. This time.....feels permanent. I feel as though I've lost my daughter.

The only thing that gives me hope is the scripture:

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I have the promise that all I've put into her heart and her mind is still there, sprouting like a seedling. I have taught her everyday of her life how to behave, how a lady acts, how to treat others, to trust in God, that she has a purpose here. It started the first time I held her in my arms and has not stopped. If you had the time to sit with her, she could tell you almost word for word, everything I've placed in her heart. She KNOWS.

Right now she is doing things "her" way. The opposite of all I've instilled in her, of course. But one day....one day, she will come back around. I have that promise. God doesn't break His promises.

Monday marks the beginning of another chapter in our lives. Daughter is beginning her transition home after living apart from us for the past year. So let's start from the beginning...or somewhere kind of close.

My daughter will be 17 in a few months. She's always been an exhausting child. What I mean is, always demanding attention, constantly on the move, a total energy vampire. At the same time, she's a total ray of sunshine ~ laughing, brightening up the room and bringing unique ideas to the table. I noticed a change in her behavior starting in 5th grade. I KNEW something was different, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I attributed it to her age and the onset of puberty.

I kept this opinion throughout her 5th grade year while I tried different discipline tactics, tried to keep her engaged in activities and went bald on 1/3 of my head from pulling my hair out. Somewhere between 5th and 6th grade, almost overnight, she began stealing, lying, grades began dropping. My once happy child suddenly became defiant and hateful. Never happy about anything. I felt like such a failure as a parent.

Knowing something was wrong with her and having grown up with a Bipolar sister, I took her in for a professional opinion. The diagnosis was anxiety and mild OCD. I chalked it up as a bunch of bull and left. After all, how he could come up with that after only spending 10 minutes talking to her blew my mind.

Things got progressively worse to the point that I just wanted to send her to live with her Dad. I was exhausted and out of options. At the end of her 7th grade year, I noticed several cuts on her wrist that clearly weren't any kind of accident. I questioned her over and over and got no where with her. I went through her room one day and found a suicide threat, some really dark poems she'd written and a few letters to some of her friends discussing her cutting. Needless to say, I freaked out. There's just no other way to put it. I called our family doctor because I had no idea what to do. He suggested taking her to the ER once school was out and explaining what I had seen and found. He said this was the fastest way to get her help because she needed to see a Psychiatrist but the waiting list for those was over 6 months long.

That started a LONG, LONG road to Nowhere Street. Over the next 2 1/2 years, we'd been to 3 psychiatrists all who told me it was me with the problem and she was a perfectly normal teenager. Somehow it was all my fault. We took her to the ER 4 times for suicide threats and notes. They kept her once overnight and a second time for the weekend. I spend countless nights looking for her, calling friends to see if they'd seen her when she wouldn't come home from school or never showed up for curfew. The police were called numerous times to report her as a runaway. She began skipping first a class, then entire days of school. She was getting straight F's even if she was in class. She was so defiant and ugly at home that I'd spend my nights crying my eyes out and praying for a miracle. Her cutting worsened. There were times she cut so deeply that she almost needed stitches. She began self tattooing and piercing herself.
The pain I saw in her eyes was almost enough to kill me. I just had no idea what was wrong, what had gone wrong or how to help her.

Every where I turned for help, I was turned away. She wasn't "bad" enough for services; she was just "lazy"; let her do what she wants, she'll come around; you aren't a good parent; you don't discipline her; you don't show her enough love....I felt like I was jumping through hoops and getting beaten at the same time.

Finally, on our 5th visit to the ER in a year and a half, the male nurse who was helping us told me, "You've been here too many times for this. I can't believe nobody has helped you or looked into this. I'm going to go through your daughter's file and I'm going to get both of you the help she needs." I started crying. FINALLY! Finally somebody was listening to me.

Long story short, we ended up with a social worker from the county to help get her the services she needed, a psychiatrist who placed her in a summer program to test and diagnose her, a family therapist, a personal therapist for her, and an IEP at school. Her diagnosis was ADD, severe depression and anxiety. She was put on medication to help those things. We went on like this for a year with some things getting better, some things worse.

Last year at around this time, I had to call her in as a runaway again when she never showed up after school and I got a phone call from school saying she hadn't been in school all day. None of her friends knew where she was or had seen her. At around 8 pm, I got a tip off from a friend and had the police go and pick her up. It was the deputy that noticed the severe & long cuts on her arm and wrist again. He strongly suggested taking her to ER again and calling her therapist and social worker. They ended up keeping her in the Adolescent Mental Ward for a week while her social worker and I ironed out what to do.

I was given two options: 1) Voluntarily place her in a group home or 2) Wait it out, stay on the same path and wait until it becomes court ordered.
Being at my wits end with her and running out of time to help her straighten out her life (she was a month away from turning 16), I opted to voluntarily place her in a group home an hour and a half from where we lived.

I cried for 3 days straight. I worried about doing the right thing for her. I worried about if she'd be safe. I grieved for the little girl I had lost somewhere along the way. The little girl who had laughed and been silly. The little girl who had worn my high heels around the house and sang worship songs. The little girl I had held in my arms. The little girl who had my heart and soul. I had to believe I was doing the right thing. Had to believe God had a plan I couldn't see & He had in all in control.

The past year has been hard and long. It turns out that it was the right decision. It's been harder for Daughter than for the rest of us. She's done a lot of soul searching and digging. She's learned a lot of hard lessons. She's had to look at herself in a way that's hard for anyone to do.

On Monday, she moves back home during the week and goes back to the group home on the weekends. She'll be finishing off the last quarter of school at her own school. She left with straight F's and is coming back with A's and B's. We are all excited for this chapter to begin and also to close it and start on the next chapter.

She hasn't cut since last August. She laughs and is silly again. She wears my high heels and sings again. Though now the shoes fit and its definitely not worship songs she sings. I hold her in my arms and snuggle with her. OFTEN. We talk, we cry. I'm learning from her everyday.

And that little girl still has my heart and soul...woven tightly in every fiber of her being, held together with tears and laughter and love.