Midst of the Hurricane

Midst of the Hurricane

Sometimes life can feel like a hurricane waiting to hit. I guess the intensity can depend on each situation. Recently, my family and I have gone through one of the worst hurricanes in our life. I would rate it a category 5 tipping the scales to a 6 if there could be a 6 strength. My 16 year old daughter, at the time 14, met a boy from our church. My daughter had always been the type to invite others into the youth group and get them involved. She was a very happy and joyful girl. This boy seemed alone and quiet. She went over and introduced herself. She always did this. She invited the boy to come and join the youth group. He did and they were acquaintances. In December of 06, the boys father had a heart attack in their home. For some reason, the boy called my daughter to pray. Unfortunately we did not get the call. My daughter had recently gotten grounded from the cell phone for going over her limit on minutes. The father ended up dying in the boy’s home. A friend of our daughter’s was able to reach us by our home phone. She let Ashley know of the death and that the boy was trying to reach her. We allowed her to call. The boy asked her to go to the funeral. We thought this would be a great way for her to show support and allowed her to attend. I took her. From then on, the boy and my daughter became best of friends. Later, it turned into a “boyfriend/girlfriend scenario”. I wished I would have jumped in and stopped it. As I do with ALL of my daughter’s friends, I met the mother. She seemed very legitimate and very Christian at that time. I decided to try and get to know the mother more since she had just lost her husband and thought she might could use a friend. The family was very wealthy as the father had been a doctor and had left his wife with money, a life insurance inheritance and she had received an inheritance from a past relative. They would be ok “financially”.
The more I talked to the mom, the more she seemed like a strict mom. Then one day we were hanging out waiting for our kids at a movie and she told me that her son had started having some depression. It was understandable considering that the boy had just lost his father. Then, she said that her son had a gift to see demons. That took me a step back. It isn’t that I don’t believe that demons exist, because I do, If I believe the Bible as being the true word of God then, I have to believe the part that demons do exist but, I also believe that if you have the gift to see them, that you should also have the gift of sending those things packing. This was not the case. The mom felt that it was “OK” for these things to hang around. NO BIG DEAL, she said she saw demons too. This is where I get very uneasy. I started noticing a change in my joyful daughter. In a matter of 3 months, she had started changing drastically. She didn’t hang out with her friends any more and she didn’t go out to do things. She started secluding herself and cutting herself off from everything and everyone. I felt that this relationship was not healthy for her. I talked to my daughter and told her that she and the boy couldn’t hang out and see each other anymore. She became very upset and ran away from home. This is when my husband and I searched for some answers. We looked into her room and found some things such as homemade Ouija board, very dark writing and some dialog between my daughter and the boy. He had basically told her that she was too nice and that he would show her how to change. It wasn’t something he could tell her but SHOW her. We were shocked. We also found poems with curses against my husband and myself. We were finally able to bring my daughter home that same day she ran away. However, the boy and his mom had called CPS. I had been married young and my daughter was from my first marriage. Her birth father had stopped seeing her when she was 5. She had been forced to visit sporadically between the age of 3 and 5. During that time, unknown to my husband and myself, (I had remarried to a wonderful man who had adopted my daughter at age 10 ) during a summer visit, Ashley’s birth father and 2 uncles had molested her. We never knew about it until my daughter ran away. This is why the mother and boy called cps. CPS came and talked with Ashley. Then with us. We were bewildered that the mom had put a report against my husband and myself for “medical neglect” when we learned that Ashley had cut herself on her arms. We didn’t even know she did it. I was so angry. However, CPS found no such medical neglect to be true. They ruled out the neglect accusation. (They believed it was a retaliation for us breaking up the kids). We did put Ashley into hospitalization for the cutting for a week. We also had to put her on anti-depression medicine too as now she was suffering with depression. (she was so happy before she met this kid). As Ashley began to do better, we found that the boy had introduced her to WICCA. Witchcraft. We found that they did more than just dabble. I couldn’t understand it because, when they were with me, they were always with me..not by themselves. The mother assured me that when they were with her, they were not by themselves. I found out later this was not true. The mother let them have free reign. I was shocked. Even after breaking up the kids, the mother of the boy started sneaking the kids around. I was furious. They had even purchased a cell phone for my daughter to use since hers had been taken away for punishment on over exceeding her minutes. I WAS MORE FURIOUS. I told my husband NOT to take the phone away so that they would see that she would go over the minutes. THIS WORKED TO OUR ADVANTAGE. When the boy and his mom received the phone bill, they noticed several calls to the same number for hours at a time. My daughter made friends with other boys and girls from her new school and would call them on her NEW CELL phone. The boy was curious. He called the numbers and found that some of them were boys. He was livid. I knew this would happen. I KNEW IT. This made the boy show his TRUE colors and abusive tendencies. He was so hateful to my daughter and finally ended the sneaking relationship for good. THANK GOD. This is what I prayed for. Since then, my daughter has had to go back into hospitalization a second time for cutting. She still takes medicine for depression. She has struggled with self worth and confidence. It has been about a year now. She seems to be doing better. We are starting to see our a little of our old daughter coming back. She has added color back into her wardrobe and she is in steady counseling. She also meets with her life group leaders and has returned to youth and life group at church. I know that we still have a way to go with her. We will make it by the grace of God. I believe with all my heart that God has His hand on my daughter’s life. I have raised her to know the truth. I hold on to God’s promise that if I raise my children in the way they should go, in Him, that when they are old they will return and not depart from God. I have prayed for my daughter all her life. I mean sincerely prayed, constantly. I believe God and hold on to His promise. Even though my daughter knew the truth, she made some horrible choices that gave her severe consequences. She is learning from them a very hard lesson. So are we as parents. Even though we checked everything out about this family, we still did not know the truth about them. I know that God is faithful and merciful. I know He is the one to give praise and honor for brining my daughter and family through. Please parents, don’t let your guards down. This is just a portion of the story. I couldn’t even begin to tell the whole thing. There were such frightening events that my husband and I knew that our only hope was to rely on God. To lean on God. He is still in the healing business and He is still bringing us through. I will not lean on my own understanding, I will acknowledge God in all His ways, and He will direct our paths. Please, be prayerful with us as we are on our way in God’s healing power. This hurricane did not defeat us. Even though Satan rose up like a flood, God rose up and kept us from drowning. In the eye of this hurricane, God blessed my husband and I with a beautiful healthy baby boy. It was a blessing in our storm. My daughter adores her brother although she tries to act tough. She feeds him and holds him and loves him. I am grateful. I can’t say that I wasn’t angry and I that I understood, because I didn’t understand and I was angry. I asked God why so many times. I am learning how to say BLESSED BE YOUR NAME in both the good and bad circumstances of our lives. I stand and say that this hurricane has dissipated. The sun is beginning to shine again. I praise God for all the prayer warriors who warred with us through this.