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.