I need the Lord right now more than I have in my entire life. I need to hear Him whisper "Elizabeth, it is going to be okay". And amazingly I don't hear Him. I know He's there. I can feel His presence. But He is silent. Do you remember when you were a kid and you had a test? You studied all night and you knew the material. You show up to class the next day and you can't remember anything! You stare at the blank test and panic "I know this!!" That's a little bit how I am feeling today.
We just wrapped up the last week of our daughters treatment in group family counseling. I blogged about how much I dreaded it. I was wrong. I was dead wrong. It was one of the most informative and humbling experiences my husband and I have ever had. I will say that the Lord appointed our group. It had to have been divine intervention. Our group had so much in common it was uncanny. Every doubt Robin and I had was met with a fulfilled need in the form of a parent, child or a spouse who had experienced exactly what we have. We all thought we had bad relatives trying to be good. What we learned is that we have sick family members trying to get well. We didn't cause it. We didn't create it. But we have all enabled it. And only they can change it. The federal prosecutor, the student, the business owner, the dentist, the doctor, the college professor. The bravest human beings I have ever met.
It was recommended for our daughters treatment to live in a sober living house with other college aged girls in recovery. After her "graduation" we hoped in the car and drove the 300 miles to her new city. Where she will live and work for the next several months. In the cover of darkness we dropped our daughter off. Standing in the driveway with her Barbour coat, Tory Burch shoes, Citizens jeans, Louis Vuitton bag and boarding school class ring. $40 cash in her pocket and no car or phone. Her outside dressing may have looked orchestrated. But beneath she was identical to her new 9 roommates. "You can do this" her Daddy whispered with tears in his eyes. I hugged her. Told her how proud of her I was. She met our gaze with "I want to go home". We told her she was not allowed to come to our home again until she was sober. I hugged her. I told her again how much I loved her. And we left.
I cried the whole way home. Deep, ugly bellowing cries. I couldn't breathe. Robin squeezed my hand. "When we dropped her off at rehab we buried half of her. When we dropped her off at that house we buried the rest of our child. She can do this, Elizabeth". He was right. We are doing the right thing. This was the "tough love" I've heard about my whole life and thought was a scapegoat catch phrase. We have to stop loving her to death.
I opened my bible this morning and a piece of paper dropped on the floor. I picked it up. It was quote I have written about before. God did know I needed to hear Him today!
"Sometimes God wraps His glory in hard circumstances or ugly obstacles or
painful difficulties, and it just never occurs to us that within those life-shaking
events is a fresh revelation of Him".
When we sit in our desks, after we've opened the test booklets, the initial panic has subsided. We breathe. Slowly the answers to the tough questions start to come back to our memory. Line by line. Slow and methodically we fill in the blanks. We may not get all of the test questions right. But the answers do come. We close the test booklets. We feel at peace. It was hard. So very hard. But we survived it.
"This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it"-Psalm 118:24
