Living Through The Hurt

     I have but one thought as I think of the pain "If you still feel the pain, then you're still alive. A few weeks ago I lost a couple of boys that were in my care as a houseparent in the facility that I work for.  When I say that I lost them, it was that they were moved into others care because of their behavior. It is not that I have lost touch with them nor even that they wanted to be removed from my care, it was because of a dumb mistake on their part. I have in the passed had children moved from my care and even some of the feelings that I had hurt me emotionally. This pain was different than any that I have ever had, I felt as though I had failed in teaching them something or had guided them in a direction that they should never have gone. It is a difficult thing for a man to face failure, it is a more difficult thing for a man to honestly look at the situation and decide if it really was failure. It has taken me weeks to reflect and decide just what it was that happened, and as it is, there are so many deciding factors and people in these young men's lives that it is next to impossible to get a handle on the whole. I have also faced the feeling of betrayal, in that these young men made the decision and the plans to accomplish this feat, it was as if they had decided that there was no need for help and the man in their life was incapable to give them the help they needed. Today I was thinking, how many fathers of children who are biological have or are facing this exact situation. It is when you believe you are the only one facing difficulties, that if you look around, one is never by themselves. I had forgot something that I did with mo own biological son that one should do with every child they have, raise or that they are given responsibility of, "pray for them." Pray for them as early as you know your are going to have them, when they're conceived, when they're born, when they're given to you, when they turn 1, 4, 14, or 24 pray for them. After the prayer it is time to teach them everything you can about life, living, and God and do it to the best of your ability, there are so many others out there that will teach them all the things that will lead them the other way. I am not talking about these two boys anymore, it is about me. I had begun to fail, not in what I had been doing but in what I had let this episode begin to do to me. I was willing and am still fighting this problem of wanting to give up, just because things didn't work exactly the way I planned.                      
     To all the fathers out there we can sometimes do everything as correct as we know and do the best we can at the very moment and still not have the results we had strove and hoped for. There are so many influences out there, so many opinions, and such a great difference of modern culture in the world today, that it is hard to know what to do and easy to second guess yourself. There are no promises in this situation, save one "seek the counsel of God's word and live in His presence, seek His guidance and He will show the answers, look for His comfort when things go wrong and He will console, seek forgiveness when mistakes are made and He will forgive. God is the only answer for the pain, remember that if you still feel the pain, then you're still alive. Oh, and add to this seek God and bask in His console and live life full.