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.
|