Thank you.  I know what you say is true in my head but sometimes I become so 
depressed and feel like such a failure.  He sabotages all I try to do for 
him most of it comes to naught.  I know he will learn some day but I wish 
somehow it could be now.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "B Dunse" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: I request your prayers


> Angel,
>
> Your son is exercising a God given gift. Doesn't sound very biblical does 
> it. It is true nonetheless. God gave us all the choice of choosing how we 
> live our lives. If he hadn't, then why the need for Christ and we'd have 
> been preprogrammed robots. But God wanted us to "want" to love him and 
> "want" to obey him and so for that to happen, he needed to make us with a 
> freewill to choose or not choose him. Along with that choice is a whole 
> host of choices in our daily life. Each person having their own individual 
> choice and therefore only they are responsible for those choices. If you 
> were neglect in showing your son the truth, then maybe you'd have 
> responsibility, but we know that isn't the case from your posts here over 
> the years. So your feeling responsible or to blame is the enemy trying to 
> misuse use the  motherly instincts to protect and help. Helping to take 
> his blame does not help him see the truth but only hinders it. People can 
> say there is no God, no Christ, and we're all just gray matter walking 
> around on the Earth, they can even believe that, but that belief doesn't 
> change the truth no matter how often they say it or how deeply they 
> believe it. Likened to that is your son blaming you for his situations. He 
> can believe it, say it and even convince you of it if you allow it, but 
> that doesn't change the fact it is his own responsibility once he leaves 
> your motherly counsel. I don't think you counseled him to smoke, change 
> the grades, lie and all the rest. If you had, then you'd be to blame, but 
> I know you didn't. It is difficult to see this happen in our kids. We want 
> to hold on to that little kid who was so innocent and did all those cute 
> things, said all those innocently cute things, and we could never imagine 
> them lying to us, stealing, or anything opposite of what we instructed 
> them to in life, and so we feel a burden of sorrow, betrayal even, and yet 
> we continue to want to do all we can to help them. But sometimes  just 
> saying nothing, doing nothing, not helping but letting them sleep in the 
> bed they made is the quickest way to their realization. It takes a keen 
> sense of when to help and when to not, when have they really changed and 
> honestly need a help up and not an enabler. Prayer does help make that 
> determination.  Nonetheless, be assured you are not to blame for your 
> son's goings on anymore than Jesus is for ours. Don't believe all that 
> cruddy lies told to you or whispered in your thoughts at night or quiet 
> times, your son is responsible for his actions. Granted the law of man 
> tries to put a minor's responsibility on  to the parent, but that is not 
> God's law, least I don't think so. Parents treated their kids pretty 
> harshly centuries ago to try to maintain order in society. Let him sweat 
> out some of what he reaps from his sowing of bad seed. Sooner or later the 
> training wheels got to come off and they free wheel and crash 
> occasionally.
>
> Brad
>
>
>
>
> on 02:45 AM 12/6/2006, Angel said:
>
> I would like to ask your prayers.  My son is 16 years old.  He no longer 
> wants to go to mass, and he hangs around with the wrong crowd.  I had to 
> appear with him Monday before a court officer because he was caught 
> smoking, he is under age, and with a counterfeit controlled substance.  He 
> had to produce his report card from school.  I didn't receive his last 
> report card due to a mix up.  I asked the secretary for another.  She sent 
> it home.  It was the best report card he ever had.  I promised him money 
> if he brought his grades up, formerly they were pretty bad.  I was so 
> proud.  We presented it to the court officer and he was amazed as he 
> didn't see good cards often.  I was going to tell the officer how bad he 
> had been, but, with that good card I thought perhaps he was turning 
> himself around and there was no real need to do this.  The same day his 
> teacher phoned and said he was performing badly and he was in danger of 
> failing.  I couldn't understand this given his good report card.  I even 
> thought he might have counterfeited it.  I couldn't figure how this could 
> be done as he didn't know the address of the school or the proper spelling 
> of the teacher or the principal's names.  I went to school today to 
> determine why they both were saying he wasn't doing well.  The upshot was: 
> He used my scanner to copy and change his grades.  I was so disappointed, 
> and felt so foolish.  Here I was trying to defend a boy who was so 
> obviously a fraud.  He lies so much I can't really trust anything he says, 
> but as St. Paul says "love believes all things" I guess.  It is just that 
> I know his potential and I know if he really tried he could do as well as 
> his phony grades indicated.  Just last week he stopped seeing a few of his 
> bad friends and I thought he was turning himself around but, he still 
> insists his report card was the one given him by the school, and the 
> confusion was the fault of the schools.  I keep thinking I must have 
> failed somewhere.  People keep telling me I haven't and his bad behavior 
> isn't somehow my fault, but, I still think if I somehow did something 
> differently he would improve.  If you ask him he will blame me for all he 
> does.  He uses me as an excuse.  I even do that.  I really need prayers.