Kaleidoscopic Living

This has been my life since November 30, 2011, when I walked away from my marriage and my home.

Each day I face a kaleidoscope of choices and decisions. My life has begun to look very much like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, instead of the patchwork quilt I saw it as in the past. The patches have come unsewn, torn, ripped from their neighbors stitches to lie strewn around me in tatters. They present a colorful walk, sometimes, but usually they just present a mess.

I spend all day everyday trying to pull them back together. I try to make sense of the messes I stumble over. Sometimes the wind blows the pieces in my lap and I seem to be required, alone, to judge whether they are fit to keep, or to be purged from my life forever. This is a weighty responsibility when you learn that these pieces I speak of are actually people and career steps.

Long ago my kaleidoscope was filled with beautiful threads of all different shades of color. It was my job to put them together in a design that was pleasing. But some of the pieces I could never quite place. They just seemed to drift around in the viewer on the periphery of the ones I'd fitted into the design of my life. But they didn't go away.

Then one day, I decided it was time to make sense of ALL of the pieces. Only, that meant I'd have to undo the ones I'd already fit together in the center of the picture. I fell to ripping and shredding, and eventually was rewarded with a blank space once again and lots of little, colorful pieces, though ragged edged, lying around the outside from which to choose for my design.

I stared at the blank space a long time, trying to get an image in my mind of what the design should look like, with ALL of the shreds included. I stared and stared. The longer I stared, the less certain I was of my decisions; and the less certain I was of my decisions, the fewer pieces I began to see on the periphery; and the fewer pieces I began to see, the more I began to realize I was still left with those I'd had all along in the middle.

And when I looked again in the middle of my blank space, I realized that the only pattern that made sense there, with the colors that were left on the periphery, was the pattern I'd had all along.

Then someone shook the kaleidoscope, I woke up the next day and found a completely different view , all the pieces lying on the sides, and the blank space waiting.  Once again I was being required to make decisions I had never had to make on my own, deal with problems that had not been only mine in the making, but now seemed were only mine in the solving. Then again, the kaleidoscope was shaken, and the view changed.

This happened over and over and over, for months. Each day I found a new pattern in the kaleidoscope, confusing, yet if I stared long enough I could see it made some sense, somehow. But the next day I'd wake up to a new arrangement of the pieces, and I'd have to come up with a solution to the puzzle.

This is my life now: a kaleidoscope of problems and solutions that don't often match up into a picture that makes sense. But when it does, most often a day passes and the entire picture changes, so that I am constantly on my toes, waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering what the next day will bring, knowing it probably won't be good. I never move, but the view constantly changes day by day.

I turn daily to my God, his Word, my faith experiences of a lifetime, my fellow pilgrims in The Way. Seldom do I find answers in any of those places.

Lately I've had a block between me and a choir anthem. "Children of the Heavenly Father" has been a lifetime favorite of mine ever since I first heard it and sang it with the Bethany Church choir in Sierra Madre, California, way back in the 70's. It must have been Father's Day. That's when churches use that hymn, it seems, as pastors and music directors search for hymns and songs to accompany the perennial "God of our Fathers". That's when our church is using it this year. And I can't sing it. I even signed out for that Sunday, and don't plan to attend.


I have no father of my children to sit beside that day. I no father of my own to celebrate that day. And most of all, I have no children of their father to show him honor that day. This is a part of the kaleidoscope. My daughter ran away with a con man a year and some ago, my son has moved out away from both parents and will not speak to us because he didn't like the way we tried to get help for his emotional disturbances. And there is no hope that either one will ever be with us again, at this point in time. They have written off their parents entirely as evil beings who want only to harm them. And friends and would-be counselors have reinforced this perception, it seems.

So can't I be forgiven for my unwillingness to mouth these words that one day of the year?

Children of the heav’nly Father
Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in Heaven
Such a refuge e’er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish;
In His holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things He spares them;
In His mighty arms He bears them.

Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord His children sever;
Unto them His grace He showeth,
And their sorrows all He knoweth.

Though He giveth or He taketh,
God His children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy.

How can this be true?? With my once zealously Christian daughter claiming to be a Pagan, my son refusing to think of anything else at all except where he will live when he has to leave my friend's home, so that he is failing school. And he refuses to go to church at all or be in any way involved with God's people, like his earthly father. How can I believe that God protects them, when my daughter was scooped up by the Pied Piper of Manzanita last year, and saw fit to take out restraining orders on her parents so that we had to go to court against her to get them lifted? How can I believe God is watching my two sparrows when my son's anguished wailing over his uncertainties, even in the high school in front of girls, reaches my ears and I know that the only thing I can do, since my presence seems to cause him fits, is simply walk away and let my friend take him home to her place? How?? Where?? Where is this so-called loving Father God now? I mean, is there ANY Scriptural basis for this outrageous claim???

Worse, where was He when millions, MILLIONS of children died of hunger in West Africa, and when so many die of war, or basic inhumanity??! Totally innocent!!!

I thought I had laid all these questions long, long ago. But when it's your own children hurting, you realize they will always recur. I thought I had put on the full armor of God early on so that I would be able to withstand these onslaughts. But I find I am caving under them. Sure, I know the right answers. But what good do they do really? Aren't they just a balm we throw over the fires of people's confusion and pain to make it easier for ourselves to endure? Aren't they just lovely words that soothe and calm and pacify long enough to get through this miserable life, after all?

Oh, this is heresy!! Especially on a blog that purports to be encouraging, right?

Yeah, I know. I agree. That's why, before I came here to write my confusion, I first took a minute to check in with the "heavenly Father" of the poem by Kar­oli­na W. San­dell-Berg. And what I found, when I sat alone in my room, listening for the answer, was an answer that worked for me.

It might not work for you, but it works for me. Does it make me able to sing that hymn this Father's Day. Not at this time. But it does help me make sense of this kaleidoscope for today, at least.

Here's the answer I was given:

*I* am a child of the heavenly Father. I can review my own experiences:

1. Has he been there for me all my life? Yes, he has.
2. Has he tended and nourished me? Yes, and I can list ways he's done that.
3. Has he spared me from evil things? Yes, I can name some evil things that should have come my way and didn't, by his grace, and some that did and I was spared from, ditto.
4. Though I can't tell about death yet, I can certainly say that life has not been able to sever me from him, and even when I turn my back, he has been there for me, providing for me, making sure what I need is always attainable, always within reach.
5. He has shown me his grace, and he sure seems to have known my sorrows, at least at some very poignant times, and he most definitely has given me jewel-like gifts at key points in my life along the The Way.
6. Has he ever really forsaken me? Apparently not, as I find these answers here today just because I sat down and asked for them. I have felt his presence like a warm, heavy comforter in the cold night, and like a vibrant joyful electric surge hanging in the air around me, just because I asked and decided to believe the answer.

He has never forsaken me, even when I could not feel his presence, even when evil seemed to be all there was in the room, fear and terror and death. I know that he was there with me, because his words rang in my ear the next day, and do still. When I asked the question, "I needed him, but I couldn't feel his presence, why?" The answer came: "But he was there." And that's all the answer needed, really. That was the promise. That is the answer. And that's the answer now.

I can't sing that last verse right now, because I can't see how it's "his loving purpose solely to preserve them, pure and holy" when he allows my sweet little girl to grow up in him and then lets her run off into the sunset with a bad man more than 20 years her senior, an adulterer who's made this little one to stumble. I can't see that as part of his "loving purpose". But I don't have to understand (as I was reminded only yesterday by a close friend). I just have to keep on walking, keep on walking, keep on walking, walking, walking. This was his word to me a year ago, just after my daughter left, while I waited, ridden with fear for her safety; and that is still his word to me. "What is that to you, you follow me," he says when I ask about my children's lives and his purpose.

Looking up the words to the hymn, I found the story of the poem's author.  Look it up, perhaps it will surprise you as it did me. I also found the Scripture that it appears to be based on:

" See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are."
1 John 3:1a

And the last two verses, usually left out, just illustrate further how intimately involved our heavenly Father wants to be in our lives:

Lo, their very hairs He numbers,
And no daily care encumbers
Them that share His ev’ry blessing
And His help in woes distressing.

Praise the Lord in joyful numbers:
Your Protector never slumbers.
At the will of your Defender
Ev’ry foeman must surrender.

Someday I will be able to sing this hymn again, I know now. And when I do, I will be sure to include these last two verses. How I love the imagery of the Defender making every "foeman" of mine surrender! I believe it will be so. And the first will be my own human intellect, requiring visible evidence; requiring that life go pleasingly for me if I'm to believe all my heavenly Father has promised.
 
 My question last evening during rehearsal, as I stared at the statue of Jesus with the child in our courtyard, was this: Even if they push you away, heavenly Father, you are strong enough to stay in their lives for their own good, and you have promised to never leave us nor forsake us, so where are you now???

His answer is: "I am there. And what is that to you? You follow me."

In my mind's eye, I see Him smiling as He says these words to me. He has a place for me, and it's only myself I am to be accountable for now that my children are grown and making their own decisions. They will always have him to turn to. I will pray that they turn to him. That's my job. And I intend to do it.

Peace,
Simply Patty

The Lord Liveth, and Blessed Be The Rock

A song of thanksgiving and praise for finally finding answers for the five-year-long questions about our son's mental health issues.Think of me wherever the text says "David" or refers to "the king" in any way, and imagine my enemies as my son's disorders and syndromes, and those who stood in the way for so long of our finding answers to his dilemmas, and our own ignorance and fear:

Psalm 18

The LORD Praised for Giving Deliverance.

    For the choir director. A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said,

“I love You, O LORD, my strength.”
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me,
And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.
The cords of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the LORD,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

 

Then the earth shook and quaked;
And the foundations of the mountains were trembling
And were shaken, because He was angry.
Smoke went up out of His nostrils,
And fire from His mouth devoured;
Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With thick darkness under His feet.
He rode upon a cherub and flew;
And He sped upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him,
Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
From the brightness before Him passed His thick clouds,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
The LORD also thundered in the heavens,
And the Most High uttered His voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
He sent out His arrows, and scattered them,
And lightning flashes in abundance, and routed them.
Then the channels of water appeared,
And the foundations of the world were laid bare
At Your rebuke, O LORD,
At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

 

He sent from on high, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
And from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
But the LORD was my stay.
He brought me forth also into a broad place;
He rescued me, because He delighted in me.

 

The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.
For I have kept the ways of the LORD,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all His ordinances were before me,
And I did not put away His statutes from me.
I was also blameless with Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His eyes.

 

With the kind You show Yourself kind;
With the blameless You show Yourself blameless;
With the pure You show Yourself pure,
And with the crooked You show Yourself astute.
For You save an afflicted people,
But haughty eyes You abase.
For You light my lamp;
The LORD my God illumines my darkness.
For by You I can run upon a troop;
And by my God I can leap over a wall.

 

As for God, His way is blameless;
The word of the LORD is tried;
He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.
For who is God, but the LORD?
And who is a rock, except our God,
The God who girds me with strength
And makes my way blameless?
He makes my feet like hinds’ feet,
And sets me upon my high places.
He trains my hands for battle,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have also given me the shield of Your salvation,
And Your right hand upholds me;
And Your gentleness makes me great.
You enlarge my steps under me,
And my feet have not slipped.

 

I pursued my enemies and overtook them,
And I did not turn back until they were consumed.
I shattered them, so that they were not able to rise;
They fell under my feet.
For You have girded me with strength for battle;
You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.
You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me,
And I destroyed those who hated me.
They cried for help, but there was none to save,
Even to the LORD, but He did not answer them.
Then I beat them fine as the dust before the wind;
I emptied them out as the mire of the streets.

 

You have delivered me from the contentions of the people;
You have placed me as head of the nations;
A people whom I have not known serve me.
As soon as they hear, they obey me;
Foreigners submit to me.
Foreigners fade away,
And come trembling out of their fortresses.

 

The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock;
And exalted be the God of my salvation,
The God who executes vengeance for me,
And subdues peoples under me.
He delivers me from my enemies;
Surely You lift me above those who rise up against me;
You rescue me from the violent man.
Therefore I will give thanks to You among the nations, O LORD,
And I will sing praises to Your name.
He gives great deliverance to His king,
And shows lovingkindness to His anointed,
To David and his descendants forever. 

 

I would have given everything I ever possessed five years ago, to have had the intensity of attention our son has received these past five days. But it was not the Plan. Now we are ready to receive any diagnosis that is true. Then we were not; in fact, the true diagnosis was present in the minds of family friends, if we had only understood. Now we begin to see, and now we begin to accept. What is forthcoming, let it be forthcoming. We are all ears, and our wills are subdued.

Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ!

The Lord liveth, and blessed be the Rock, 
and may the God of our salvation be exalted! 
The Lord liveth, and blessed be the Rock, 
and may the God of our salvation be exalted!

Praise with me the God of Easter, the Lord of the Resurrection, Jesus, our King and our Friend!

Simply praising, 

Patty

Leftovers

"And when they were filled, he saith unto his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost." John 6:12 (ASV)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_vrpMrQ--0

Nothing is lost on the breath of God,
nothing is lost for ever;
God's breath is love, and that love will remain,
holding the world for ever.
No feather too light, no hair too fine,
no flower too brief in its glory;
no drop in the ocean, no dust in the air,
but is counted and told in God's story.

Nothing is lost to the eyes of God,
nothing is lost for ever;
God sees with love and that love will remain,
holding the world for ever.
No journey too far, no distance too great,
no valley of darkness too blinding;
no creature too humble, no child too small
for God to be seeking, and finding.

Nothing is lost to the heart of God,
nothing is lost for ever;
God's heart is love, and that love will remain,
holding the world for ever.
No impulse of love, no office of care,
no moment of life in its fulness;
no beginning too late, no ending too soon,
but is gathered and known in God's goodness.

(Colin Gibson, 1994)


It's been a year.

Recently I had the opportunity to sift through my life's pieces, because I moved. This move was not by choice, but ordered by the Court, as I divorced my husband of 30 years. If you've ever done anything like it, you will know the place from which this comes today.

As I sorted my sewing room paraphenalia (spelled incorrectly in the dictionary, but that's another story), I separated my quilt scraps by color. However, there were several pieces that defied sorting, as they were made of several different colors. No one color could be said to be the dominant theme, so I put them in a drawer marked "multi".

This morning, as I meditated on my unconventional life of 52 years, I got the feeling I am myself a similar kind of "multi", un-categorize-able, in-between, neither this nor that, undefinable, defying pigeon-holing, paint spatter strewn across life's canvas, an un-corral-able wild, messy, chaos of a human being.

Whereas the fabric fits neatly in the organizer drawers in color categories I chose, except for this "multi" fabric, I don't fit neatly anywhere in the world. Colors slop over the sides of any activity I choose to attend. Threads of red stick out of the green school settings. Frayed edges of blue won't hide under the yellow folds of jobs I attempt to hold down. Black mixes with the white, and makes grey days. And I don't know which to concentrate on clarifying first.

This isn't only my personality. Equipped with an extremely creative frame of mind, the world itself is not clearly one thing or another to me. Growing up in it hasn't helped me at all. Add to that the kind of partner I chose at 17, a direct opposite of myself, and you have quite the dichotomy constantly percolating underneath. Time, then, wreaks havoc and causes the fabric to wear very thin. Add to that mix the most chaotic family circumstances, and voila! "Multi"!

Where on earth do you put this life?? If I were a letter, would the post office have a slot for me? If I were a laundry item, would there be instructions for my handling? What if I were a car? On which corporation's lot would you find me? Would I be a "Smart Car", or a Cadillac, or an SUV, or a mini-van, or perhaps a station wagon? Perhaps I'm a dish in the cupboard. Which cupboard? The fine china closet, or the kitchen shelf?

The problem is I have capabilities in all categories, traits that lend themselves to each. And since you wondered, I'm so introspective because I am way too complicated for my own mind, and so have never found a home. I thought I had one, years ago, in college. But afterward, I could not find one for all the tea in China, and a lot of money and hours spent thinking about it. So I had children. But the children are (mostly) grown, and one has flown the coop and the other is extremely troubled, flies the coop inside himself these days.

So I've come to this place in life, where I look back and see chaos, and look forward and see more of the same - unless I lasso one of the whirling thoughts and put it to work. Thus this blog, thus this piece, thus this image of a "multi" piece of fabric, me.

Can such a scrap be useful at last?

I notice something else about my little correlation: the scraps are leftovers, cut from the whole cloth. I am a leftover too, cut by my own hands, severed from the whole as distinctly as if I'd taken a pair of shears and cut a swath, which indeed I did. I, with my own hands, cut a gash through our family that is unrepairable. I, even I, a daughter of the King who is all about wholeness, in my journey toward wholeness for myself and my children, created these "broken pieces" of a family, of which I am one. A "leftover". Like the bread Jesus prayed into being in the passage from which the verse above is excerpted, I am extra and broken and not needed today.

But I am "gathered", and saved, that I might not be "lost". Maybe that's just where I belong, in a disciple's basket, awaiting another feeding event, ready to be used, to be devoured by hungry children or adults. Or perhaps waiting to be remade into another dish, a casserole at a church potluck (my favorite version of the heavenly feast on earth). Or a quilt scrap, waiting for the right place in a quilt that will cover a homeless child someday.

Jesus Himself noticed me, waiting in the wings, lying on the floor all dejected and waiting to be swept up into the garbage, and saw the colors, and said, "Gather her up, that she might not be lost."

So I ride in the LGPC** basket, for now.

I'll take it.

Simply gathered,
Patty


**Lake Grove Presbyterian Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon

Generations

Generations. Yeah, that's what the man was talking about. But really, was it?

My Human Development Across the Lifespan professor has a way of packaging a neat little sermon into a lecture about the latest read on child and adult development from our textbook. You think you're listening to a lecture on, say, personality types and how they develop. Then all of a sudden you realize you're being hoodwinked, and you are now in a political motivation talk with your fellow hoodwinked students. Personally, it doesn't bother me in the least, considering my professor's views are almost exactly the same as mine. Or it didn't much until yesterday.

Oh, there was the time he laid abuse at the door of single mothers. But I could see that, as it was also in the book, though I still do not agree that they are the largest population of abusers of children. But yesterday was different. The prof began talking about this generation of young adults - MY daughter and son - and the girl next to me and I just looked at each other with skepticism.

I don't think so.

My seat neighbor thought of her younger brother, and his extreme depression. I thought of my daughter and her escaping, and my son who has ideas but not the slightest faith that they will ever do any good, given the bureaucratic shredder they'll be put through.

I thought of the dark music that I see coming out of the young people, the art, the movies they love - Twilight, even Harry Potter - and how these young people are depicted and how they depict themselves, and I thought, "No, they do not look at their future positively."

I think kids and young people these days have a very grim view, and a very good grasp on reality. How can they not? We've shoved it in their faces since before they were born! Starting wtih lessons in kindergarten about how the earth has been beat up by their parents and grandparents, they were taught that they were the saviors of it and that we are counting on them to fix it for us. All through elementary, middle, and high school, the message is pounded into them: "Save us! Save us! Save us!!"

Would you feel positive about your future under those circumstances? I don't think so. And they don't, no matter how much the professors in colleges think the do. Perhaps they have polled college students and come up with a skewed curve or something. College students would be more positive than the average schmo: they're getting themselves out of the situation they were born into, they're making better lives for themselves. They would tend to be looking to a brighter future than the guy on the street, still unable to get a job due to the economy, trying desperately to help his single mother feed his younger siblings. Or the young single mother who went to cosmetology school to get a roof and some food for her children, and now she's stuck. Or the gifted young man working at Fred Meyer who has a plan for the economy that just might work, but will never see the light of day in this society. But our parents and grandparents let them know every day how we count on them, how it's they who have now the responsibility of undoing what we've become

I would run away too. Or develop Tourette's Syndrome out of nerves. Or maybe just end it all, if I weren't such a coward. Or, if I had that supreme chance, I'd make a movies full of the darkness of it all to tell my parents what they've done to us, or write a book about it, or sing songs - or more like rap raps - full of the despair I'd be filled with.

If... I didn't have the absolute knowledge of the love of a God who is Father to me, who holds the world in his hands, who already has the solution for our earth's future all figured out, and who is bringing into being that solution daily, hourly. If I didn't know that the Creator will never abandon the creation, but will one day bring it into health and unity with him through his great redeeming love act in Jesus on the cross and on Easter Day, when he raised him from the dead - then I'd be somewhat tempted to engage in the same self-pity, go nutsy, or even "postal".

But I do know it. I know it with every cell of my physiology. I know it with all my heart. I know it with my entire, puny, human, distracted mind. I've been allowed to live long enough, it seems, to have lived along into the answers Rilke was talking about when he said to "live the questions". Even as my life is shatters to pieces around me, I know most definitely that though all our efforts seem useless, and the world is becoming darker and darker around us, the darkness has no effect on the answer, because it's already been spoken in Jesus from an empty grave, which has no victory anymore. I know it as sure as day follows night, water flows downhill, and the world turns eastward. The Creator still holds the creation and all that is therein, which includes us human beings, even though we messed it up real bad.

And he holds our children. And he has the Final Answer.

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing.
Our helper he amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he!
Lord Sabaoth his name,
From age to age the same.
And he must win the battle.

And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim -
We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure:
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers
No thanks to them abideth.
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill,
God's truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever.

It has been harrowing.

I would not wish this on my worst enemy..... well, maybe my worst enemy..... No. Not even him. No parent should ever, ever, ever have to go through what I'm experiencing. But then, what makes me so special?

Last January my daughter ran away with the gypsies. She .... or somebody.... sent back  messages to the effect that she did not wish to be contacted by anyone who knew or loved her; that we were to simply pretend she never existed, and that she was going where she could escape our life-long "control and abuse"; she .... or someone ..... sent a message to her brother saying she was "going away to protect" him. Protect him? From what? who?? How???

These questions have never been answered. My daughter left a trail of tears and broken hearts behind her to rival the Trail of Tears. And my family is a house divided. Already re-evaluating my own life decisions, this threw a wrench in the works the like of which I have never experienced, nor ever ever ever wish to again. I do not know what the outcome will be, and I do not know how long it will be before I do know.

Needless to say, I've been thrown into a tail-spin that sends me lurching from one end of myself to the other, asking the questions any loving parent would ask herself:

"How did she get to this place?"
"What was it I said - did?"
"How can I help her now?"
"Is she safe??!!"
"Where could she possibly be??"
"How can I find her?"
"What on earth should I say when I see her again?"
"How can I possibly ever forgive the people who led her down this path???"

Pondering these questions has led me over and over to my pastor, counselor, best friends, specialists, and daily - sometimes hourly - to prayer and Scripture. I keep the radio tuned to the Christian stations I abhorred for so long because of the shallowness of the music - yes, I've been a music snob most of my life. No longer. I need the Word in any way, shape, or form these days, so I'll take it from anyone in any form.

The other day, the Word came to me from my pastor, who I'd gone to pray with over a revelation found in my daughter's journal from a year ago. Apparently, she'd been planning an "escape" since childhood. The earth had seemed to drop from under me, and I ran to the Lord, who is "my strong tower".  After sharing the journal and praying, Libby suggested I read a little book she pulled off the shelves lining the study walls: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller.

This morning, reading in chapter two, I came across this, in reference to the father in the story dividing his property and giving up the half to his younger son:

"However, this division of the estate only occurred when the father died. Here the younger son asks for his inheritance now, which was a sign of deep disrespect. To ask this while the father still lived was the same as to wish him dead. The younger son was saying, essentially, that he wants his father's things, but not his father. His relationship to the father has been a means to the end of enjoying his wealth, and now he is weary of that relationship. He wants out. Now. 'Give me what is mine,' he says."

My daughter asked for her money. She didn't have any, but she thought she did, perhaps because her grandmother had recently died, and she'd heard how she would inherit from her someday. But she didn't, though perhaps she didn't know that. She wanted the money which had been in her account - a refund from the fine institution of higher learning she had withdrawn from in the fall. But that money was never hers: it was payment I made for her. It is safely now in a savings account, awaiting her brother's entrance into college in a couple of years, if he should choose that; or my own, as I am going back to school. But it was never hers.

In the story of The Prodigal Son, the father gives him the money. I've never understood why, and so have done the exact opposite. We feared the people who enticed her away, and we feared her own confusion. We feared she would wake up one day and regret it, and then have no way to mend her life. But perhaps we made a mistake.

"The father's response is even more startling than the request. This was an intensely patriarchal society, in which lavish expressions of deference and respect for elders and particularly for one's parents were of supreme importance. A traditional Middle Eastern father would be expected to respond to such a request by driving the son out of the family with nothing except physical blows."

No, we did not drive her out - she had already taken herself out. And "blows" were not my way of communicating - I'd unlearned that way long ago.  Words, however, I sent her, in any way, shape, or form I could find to send them. I called, but no one answered. I left at least one voice mail message, but then her phone went dark. Her father called the people who got her into this mess, but they stone-walled and would not let us speak with her. I sent email after email, posted on Facebook, and sent private messages. None were answered, and my own Notes on my Facebook account that were written specifically for her were mocked and jeered by her. This I knew because she left us her cell phone later, when she left her car at the police station for us to pick up, and informed us through a "Cease and Desist" email sent to her father's work account. Nothing I could do would bring anything good, only bad.

And so I quit. I "ceased and desisted". I let her go.

Oh, we still feared she had been kidnapped by the gypsies. In fact, to this day I do believe that is the correct interpretation of these events. But she doesn't know it, yet. She still thinks, apparently, that she's made the great escape from a responsible life and a family who would strongly encourage her to be true to herself, her gifts and her talents, and her own commitments. She still thinks, apparently, that she's got it good and that she'll never have to face the music she left behind. I am truly sorry that she is still digging her hole so very deep, because all the responsibilities she left, as a person over 18 and a legal adult, are still waiting for her here. Since we have no address for her, we are keeping them safely for the day when she returns and takes them up again, the day when she'll have to pay all the back-bills and answer to the IRS. No, she doesn't know yet that she's been kidnapped.

Perhaps we have the wrong approach. Perhaps we should have acted as the father in the parable, who instead of giving the culturally required "blows", gave what was asked:

"This father doesn't do anything like that. He simply 'divided his property between them.' To understand the significance of this we should notice that the Greek word translated as 'property' here is the word bios, which means 'life.' A more concrete word to denote capital could have been used but was not."

So the father "divided his life between them." Oh yes. I know what that is. Oh yes. My life has been torn in two ever since my son's Tourette's surfaced. "How can I give enough of myself to him, and still have something left for my daughter?" was my constant question to myself during his middle school years, in which we had only questions and no answers from doctors or anyone else. When finally we had a diagnosis, there was so much research to try and find a cure, try and find something, anything, that would subdue the whole body twitches and tics that so disrupted his everyday existence, and ours. His sister was a casualty of that time. How can a parent divide herself in half and survive? So the father "divided his life between them," and suffered death to half himself, as he watched his son run off into the sunset with his inheritance, thinking perhaps it were better if he actually were dead, as I have thought at times.

I will keep reading this book. I need it. I am eager to find out the writer's perspective on how the son came to himself in the pig trough, turned around (the literal translation of "repent"), came humbly back to his family home. I do not want to project, but how can I help praying this will be the end to my daughter's current story? Of course I am hoping this! Of course I am typing it here so she will see it - if she is looking! Of course I risk driving her further away in the process! I will give up anything -

Perhaps I didn't give up enough, though, according to the parable. Perhaps I should have let her take the money out of her account and squandered it on the pigs, and then she would have sooner seen her position in the pig trough. But our fear was that somehow she was being used (and I still believe it is so) to get not just the little bit that was in that account, but everything we own. Fear.... our enemy's great tool, which he wields with exquisite accuracy, aided by the fine intellect of our daughter. What a travesty! He could have gotten not only the half, but the whole of our estate, we feared. And so we put the kabosh on her taking money out of the account which was rightfully mine, instead of doing as the father in the parable and simply letting her have it all.

But the question will be there until she returns, "Should we have done as the prodigal's father? Should we have helped her run away with the gypsies?"

Recently I read a short line in a small gift book in a place called Sleighbells, a Christmas shop near our home; her former boyfriend/fiance works there. I was there to buy fudge from him - he's the fudge sampler, and very good at it, too. My visits there are therapeutic for both of us. But this time I actually found a Word, in this tiny book. Perhaps I should have bought it, but I have bought too many things, thinking they are the cure. So I simply wrote down this line:

"Every parent is at sometime in his life the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope." (John Ciardi)

So that's what I do. No matter where I am to be found after this, my home, even in someone else's house, will be open to the hope that one day I'll hear a knock or the doorbell, the phone will ring, and it will be my prodigal wanting love. And one thing has never changed since she left: I will always love her, wholly, passionately, truly, and unregrettingly.

No matter what she does to me.

"You can't outrun grace."

You’re best friends with the word “regret”
And you’re afraid that your life’s been wasted
You don’t think people really change
And you’re a mess and you’ll always be the same
And you doubt if you’ll ever get it turned around

So you’ve been running, searching for something
But you’re looking in a place you don’t belong
But it’s never too late, you can’t outrun grace
No, mercy doesn’t care what you’ve done
So, come home. So, come home

You can try and fix your broken empire
And put bricks on a cracked foundation
But you’d be building castles on the sand
There’s power in the blood of Jesus
And your Father’s screaming “just come home”
And He’s reaching out His hand

I know you’ve been running, searching for something
But you’re looking in a place you don’t belong
But it’s never too late, you can’t outrun grace
No, mercy doesn’t care what you’ve done
So, come home. So, come home

From the shadows, from the wrong roads,
From the darkness, from the unknown,
To redemption, something beautiful,
To a new love, to a new home

I know you’ve been running, searching for something
But you’re looking in a place you don’t belong
But it’s never too late, you can’t outrun grace
No, mercy doesn’t care what you’ve done
So, come home. So come home.*

Just come home...


*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLU6LLIBbt0&feature=related