Yesterday was an awful day. Our teenager called to tell me that she thought she should move out of our house. When I pressed the issue, I found out that her mom had signed her out of school. She dropped out of school. Since I didn’t want to have the whole conversation on the phone, I told her to come home so we could talk about it. Then I hung up and freaked out. What was I going to do? I tried to get ahold of Jim, but I knew that he had a meeting scheduled for that time of day. So I called Josh, the youth pastor at our church. He said that he’d come over and help me talk to her.

The hardest thing about teenagers is getting to the heart of what their problem is. I think she, especially, has a hard time talking to us because she’s afraid of being vulnerable. Every person in her life has abandoned her and I think she’s just tired of getting hurt. I’m not sure that’s the total reason why she dropped out of school, but I know part of it is a test of our steadfastness. Our conversation with Josh was cut short because she was very angry and insulting. I can only take so much and after a particularly mean insult, I got up and walked away. I know that she was just trying to be mean, but it did really hurt.

But it all boils down to the fact that we’re NOT going to give up on her. I think she wants us to, but we won’t. It would certainly be easier and we really considered just being done, but I don’t believe God brought her here for it to end this way. So Jim called her and had her come down to the office. He talked her into homschooling via correspondence. She also has to come work for him a few hours a day at the office.

So things ended up working out, but it’s all a matter of what she’s willing to do. We can’t force her to succeed, but we’re going to do everything but force her, to ensure that she does succeed.