Prodigal Daughter.....

Although I include situations and anecdotes from my personal life in some of what I write here, the purpose of this blog has never been to put a record of my mundane daily life on the internet. You know what I mean..."I stopped at the grocery store today after work....think we'll have burgers on the grill....hope DH is not late so he can start the charcoal" kind of posts. The stuff from my life that I include is more to support or illustrate the point/story/idea I am expressing/pondering/musing about. But this post is going to be very personal.

My daughter ran away for the second time this week...and is missing right now. She ran away last Tuesday evening. We found her Thursday afternoon...and she left again yesterday (Saturday) evening. This is something I never thought I would have to live through...let alone twice in one week. I have no idea where she is. That is hard. I have always been the kind of mom who freaks out if I cannot find them for any length of time (I am thinking a half hour here) but when she left on Tuesday evening, after the initial "OH MY GOD" a certain peace took over. The one the Bible refers to as the peace that passeth all understanding. I've never experienced it before this situation.

I pretty much kept that peace for the whole two days she was gone, sapped a bit by the negative energy of some of those closest to me...and differences between the three deciding adults...me, my ex and his new wife. Keith stays out of the decision making process. He is very frustrated with the whole situation....and that could be a post in and of itself. There are not a lot of options for her at this point. I would be willing to send her to jail if I thought it would help but running away is not a crime and the police are largely uninterested. There are not a lot of residential schools etc. where I could send her and most of them are very expensive....hundreds of dollars a day. She is involved in drugs....mainly pot....but any kind of rehab requires a court order.

As I said, she has never done this before although her behavior has gotten progressively, exponentially worse over the course of the past year. The past few months have been a downhill plummet....while we looked on helplessly not knowing what to do. Counseling did not help. She started to take an antidepressant and it seemed to help somewhat....but she stopped without us knowing and refused to take them again once we found out. She found pot to be a much more effective antidepressant....or so it seemed to her. Anyone who has ever been caught in the substance abuse web knows that it only makes matters worse.

This picture was taken last July at Impact...a Christian retreat for teens. She went under duress....but supposedly had an encounter with the Lord there. It appeared to be a genuine encounter. The theme of Impact last year was "Let It Go"....let go of the hurt. She is thinner and harder looking. Drugs will do that. She doesn't smile much anymore.

My first words to her...after she was born were, "you precious baby." She is still my precious baby. And I want her to come home. And I want the Lord to make her whole and healthy...both physically and emotionally. Prayers requested....for my precious Beth......

I've sort of adopted a "theme song" for my Beth...and I will cling to the words of it today....resting in the assurance that he never lets go.......