The boys

Things have been relatively quiet around here with our boys. For the last 2 weeks or so they have really been towing the line.

It has been about a month now since I "confessed" what has been going on with them. What precipitated my meltdown was: the night before I caught them both stoned. If you can imagine, that evening - with my husband and I in the family room just one floor above them - they crawled out of a basement window and stood between our house and the next and smoked a joint. Then they crawled back in and sat in the dark of the basement talking quietly and listening to music. At around 11 o'clock I went down to send them to bed. I couldn't see them in the dark...but I could smell something funny. I was suspicious, because I knew that my oldest son Kirk had "experimented" before - something we naively thought was over. (As far as I knew though, Brent hadn't been involved thus far.) I told both of the boys to go upstairs to see their father. My husband took one look at them and roared.

The conversation that ensued was far from productive. My husband and I were both angry/terrified and the boys were, well, stoned. You have no idea what it was like for me, seeing my boys like that. All glassy-eyed and unable to track. We tried to talk to them and you could see them trying to focus, but losing. We sent them to bed without anything being resolved.

The next day was a snow day and we were all home together. Can you say tense? My poor daughter of course had no clue what was going on. I didn't want her to know. Ken and I talked and prayed and made some calls. Towards dinner time we sat the boys down and told them that some things would be changing. I won't give you the blow-by-blow, but essentially we restructured their lives (and ours) so that they do not have any time that they are unsupervised outside the home. (It's funny, I remember once when Brent was quite a bit younger he asked me what I would do if I ever caught him doing drugs. I told him that life as he knew it would end. There would be a grown-up there every minute so he would have no opportunity to ever do it again because it's my job to PROTECT him. I always thought he believed me.) Anyways, as you can imagine the news of their new "situation" didn't exactly go over well.

Over the next 2 weeks, Kirk gave us all kinds of grief. Before he had been sort of sullen and uncommunicative; now he was hostile. Everything made him angry and he made sure we knew it. After about a week, he became suddenly sweet and cooperative. It was a Saturday night. Around 10:30 I told my husband I had a feeling that something was up so Ken went to check on Kirk in his bedroom. Gone! The little (censored here) had snuck out of the house THROUGH HIS BEDROOM WINDOW!! I'll tell you, I was ready to change the locks and bar his window. My husband stayed surprisingly cool-headed. He tried calling Kirk on his cell - no answer. So he tried calling Kirk's friends until he found one who knew where he was. He was at a party. My husband got the address and went to pick him up. Somebody must have tipped off Kirk because he was waiting outside by the time his father arrived. Thankfully he was not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol this time. We had another fun "conversation" when he got home, followed by a week of sulking.

But something has happened since then and there has been a change in him. We've been to talk to the pastor, and we've stuck by our guns as far as the discipline goes (still are) and we have made a real effort to spend more time with them over the last month. Kirk has been almost pleasant. (He still gets his back up when we do a random pocket or bedroom search though.)

His brother is stoically taking his punishment. By all accounts, it was his first and only time to try drugs. You know what he told me a week or so after? He said, "Mom, I'm so ashamed of what I did. I never wanted to have you and dad see me like that." He says he will never do it again, and for what it's worth I believe he means it.

A part of me can't help but think "it can't be this easy" and is waiting for the other shoe to drop. But another part of me thinks "Is anything too hard for God? Didn't you cry out to Him, first on your knees, then prostrate on the ground? Didn't you beg Him to protect these boys from the wiles of the evil one and their own sinful natures, to draw them back to Himself, to remind them of His love and mercy towards them, to please, please God just make it all right again?"

There's no guarantees and no way to know if this is truly over. Sin is in the world and my family is not immune to its effects. And it's not like this is the only issue - school is still a struggle for them both. Still, I am cautiously hopeful...though my prayers for my boys are far from over. For those of you who added your prayers to my own: thank you. And please don't stop! No matter what happens, our family is being blessed by your prayers. I sure hope I have some more good news to report soon!