I have previously shared a bit about our family’s journey to safety, health and happiness (https://www.eight2eightpursuits.com/post/trading-a-year-for-a-lifetime). If you have followed along, you know that our daughter spent time in the Utah desert at a wilderness therapy program and is currently attending a therapeutic boarding school.
I decided to start writing about our journey in the hopes of encouraging parents and families who have a young person who is hurting and in need. I would like to provide a few words of hope and a listening ear.
Certainly everyone has faced the situation of saying “no” when you really want to say “yes”. I think if I found a wallet with $500, I would want to say “yes” to keeping the money, but I would instead say “no” and turn it in. I really want to say “yes” to the dessert but say “no” so that the scale will still be my friend in the morning. Sometimes saying “no” really hurts, and you know it will hurt others – but that “no” will lead to a greater “yes” down the road. It takes faith and endurance to accept the “no” right now.
At the end of January, one of the daily Mass readings was from Hebrews (10:32) and it says: “For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised”. Our pastor underscored the sentiment by saying “It takes endurance to do God’s work. Doing God’s work is not for the faint-of-heart.”
I found this rather discouraging at the time.
Yesterday, my husband and I said a big “no” to our daughter…and wow does it hurt. The therapeutic boarding school has a five-stage program and students advance to the next stage through votes from their peers, the staff and their parents, needing 2 out of 3 “yes’s”. She has made it through each stage with no issues, progressing as planned…until now. She applied for the final stage, the one where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know you will be home soon, you are in the home stretch – and we voted “no”. We chose to vote “no” not because we don’t want her home (we desperately do), but because we recognize that she is not yet ready. We know this vote from us will devastate her, regardless of how her peers and staff vote (which we are pretty sure is also “no”). We are making the tough “no” now with faith that her future “yes” will be even better.
So now this endurance thing is ringing more true for me and less discouraging. No, doing God’s work – which includes being a parent – is indeed not for the faint of heart. And endurance is exactly what we will need to navigate our daughter’s disappointment (likely even anger). As it happens, we have a home visit planned starting two days after she will know the outcome of her vote, so as much as we are looking forward to the visit, we have some trepidation.
But I know that by doing what’s right for our daughter, by being a parent rather than taking the road of least resistance, and by not giving in to the short-term desires in favor of the longer-term gain, that we are doing God’s work. I also know that God does not make us do that work alone – He is right there in the school staff, our friends, and all the people that pray for our daughter.
Our daughter is learning that you can’t always get what you want. I pray that she remembers the rest of the song and realizes that “but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need.”
If it would be helpful to know the resources our family has used to seek help and healing:
The Envoy Group (https://www.theenvoygroup.com/) assists families, at no charge, in finding the right wilderness program, therapeutic boarding school or residential treatment center.
StarGuides (https://starguideswilderness.com/) helps both boys and girls break dangerous addictions through therapeutic wilderness experiences in the beautiful Utah desert.
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