For those of you who don’t know my oldest child, David is applying for a boot camp that begins in January 2009.  We have a very large application process to go through but we are working on it and hopefully he will be accepted.  The Camp is basically for troubled teens struggling with truancy and school in general.  It lasts 6 months and during that time he will study for and complete the GED.   I don’t believe he will have any trouble passing it if puts his mind to it.  So next summer he will be 17 ½ and done with High School.  We are hoping at that point he will enlist in the armed forces.   

Here is the really scary thing(s) about this.  1.  What if he doesn’t complete this program?  This is a tough program; just to give you an idea the first 2 weeks he will have no free time or contact with anyone outside the camp.  If he doesn’t complete it that puts him behind in High school again and he is already behind 1 year.  2.  What happens if he comes out and decides the army, navy or air force is not what he wants to do?  Do my husband and I tell him to leave and where will he go besides on the streets?   We have always told the boys when they are done with HS they will not live with us unless they are going to college and working.   I just wonder if we are doing the right thing. 

So here is another issue weighing heavily on my mind.  Our youngest son has until recently had a few incidents of bad behavior but never to the extent David has.  I have always been very hopeful that my relationship with Dakota would be different.  David and I do not ever get along, we don’t enjoy each other’s company, we really don’t like each other and trust me this is very mutual.  David has absolutely no respect for me and doesn’t really want or need a mom.  With Dakota I’ve always felt differently, he seems to want a family and to please his parents sometimes.  Like I mentioned earlier this seems to be changing.  Dakota is much less mature than David and I am extremely worried that he will end up in the same boat as his older brother since he is now finally maturing a little.  Ken has always said they are the same kid with the same terribly abused and neglected past; they just act out differently. 

We need prayer, these boys need prayer! David is on the verge of beginning adulthood, is he ready, can he handle it? What does life have in store for a person who has never experienced or given unconditional love?  Furthermore, what can life have for someone who does not trust anything or anyone? 

Dakota is on the verge of becoming a teenager; will this separate us in the same way it did with David?  Will Dakota learn over the next 4 years to trust us and allow us to love him or will it be same as life with David.  Ken and I constantly trying to keep him out of serious trouble or as Ken likes to say we will be “the warden not a parent”.

Perhaps we're meant to learn that the richest hope permits the deepest suffering, which releases the strongest power, which then produces the greatest joy.  Maybe there in no shortcut to joy.  Maybe God sometimes frustrates our desire to experience Him in order to deepen it.