“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
~ 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)
Over the past several weeks, our patience, strength and calling have been put to the test. As one might imagine with this many teenage boys under one roof (9 boys, 13-years and up), things are bound to go wrong from time to time. Now, add backgrounds of abuse, abandonment and being a child of the social service system to that mix, and problems are inevitable.We’ve been going through some strong opposition from the older boys of late, which is trickling down to our youngest boys fast. The enemy knows what he’s doing, and he does it well in the lives of these boys. They often do not want to comply with rules and are often disobedient, doing what they want and what they will. Bad attitudes and strong personalities have been pushing us harder than we’ve ever been pushed before in our lives. This has brought us through several difficult discussions and very long nights, sometimes sleepless nights, and several tears. However, God continues to work through us and show us things about ourselves and about these children that move us forward and gives us insight and strength to keep going.
I would be lying if I said being a parent figure to 15 boys is an easy task. If you’ve ever had or worked with preadolescent or teenage boys, you know that easy is far from the truth. The array of emotion and spontaneous anger that at times emanates from any one of our boys is enough to keep a father and a mother busy and on their knees in prayer at all hours of the night. Multiplying that by fifteen allows one to learn very quickly that the strength it takes to keep such emotion in-check and to prevent one’s own sanity from flying out of control requires both a close relationship with the Father and continuous prayer.