Day 92-My Heart Rolled Down My Cheeks

I have wanted to write about this since Saturday when it happened, but it was too close to my heart.  Two young men in their late twenties knocked on my door that day. They were completing a program called Teen Challenge trying to change their lives for the better which they did not believe was possible a year ago.  One began using weed when he was eight years old.  The other thought he would live and die using drugs.  We stood on my front step--John, Jason and I--as my heart rolled down my cheeks.  I explained to two complete strangers who were not strangers in the end that I knew all too well about almost losing a son to addictions until he had chosen hope again in a program similar to theirs called the John Volken Academy.  They agreed that hope, faith, doing good, hard work, and helping others were the necessary keys in a structured and safe environment where there was accountability, responsibility and other tools taught to regain self worth, courage, and strength. 

No matter whose door these young adults knock on, there are challenges and trials within each home.  As I see people who are homeless without doors to knock on, I know each one has a story.  I remember when my son became homeless several times when he did not yet recognize the help he needed for his addictions and another time when he thought he knew enough from the program he was in to make it in the real world.  

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I have been praying for a new friend and her family whose son has left the program he was in.  Each person who needs help has to recognize that need and then has to want it for himself or herself.  Wherever they find help if they do, the desire to change has to come from within.  They must choose to change, and change is extremely difficult as an addict, but it is possible.  Faith, prayers, hope and love become positive influences that Elder Bednar says, "extend a tug" to our loved ones who are in need.  He goes on to say, "Be good and do good."  My husband has shown me by example the greatest goodness:  how to "love unconditionally" when there is nothing more we can do to rescue someone who has to want to be rescued himself or herself.

I included this poem in one of my first few weeks of blogs, but I felt it was needed again here:

Loving Is In The Giving

I gave thinking I was

Not expecting anything in return.

Yet, I waited . . .

Longing for you to give a smile,

To reach out and squeeze my hand

To show my caring had been received and accepted.

Not realizing, I thought by caring

I could change you--somehow

Make you happy and at peace again.

Why could I not do this?

The answer gently came.

The I had to be you.

Only you can change you.

Still I will keep on giving

No matter the outcome.

For in the caring and the giving

Unconditional love is found.