So How Did We Get Here Anyway?
/Before we share the journey of Ally’s rescue this year, we must answer the real question: what led to getting in this place of desperation with our daughter anyway?! Great question. One that has taken time and much prayer to unravel the answers. It was a process of God gradually bringing things to our attention as we sought His wisdom. The answers you seek may not come all at once, but steps at a time. But each one IS taking you closer and closer to breakthrough. Most of all, I hope this encourages parents to pay attention to the signs…I’ve learned that often times, extreme behavior is a coping method to inner hurt, leading to more and more dangerous situations.
I would frequently ask the Lord to reveal hidden things in our kids lives that needed revealed. A common remark Ally has told us is that her friends got away with everything, and she would get caught right away. Personally, I love that! We’ve never been “put your head in the sand” parents who would rather not know what’s going on. Again, each thing revealed is a step towards being able to dig to the root issues, so help and healing can take place.
Early signs came as a middle schooler. Cutting for example…because she had recently moved up to youth and been exposed to it, I reasoned that she was “trying it” because friends were doing it. Then “trying” a vape at a youth group outing. But not once, I admit, did I consider there were things going on inside that were causing her pain. I regret this and take responsibility for not getting her connected to a counselor earlier. Hopefully, our story will help other parents take action faster.
We experienced a really good couple years without incident after those middle school years, as we got rooted and planted in an amazing ministry. We witnessed incredible spiritual growth in both our kids. They were both learning to hear God’s voice personally, and surrounded by strong people who encouraged and spoke into them. Seemingly, out of the blue, the signs of trouble came back.
Things started to come to our attention, beginning with a friend pulling me aside to inform me about some inappropriate things on a social media account. Thank God for friends like this. We need each other! What she shared was disturbing, and I went to the Lord in prayer, asking a very common question in my prayer life, “Holy Spirit, what do I say? How do I approach this?” I remember hearing the exact sentence to ask, “We’ve heard some things that aren’t good, what’s going on?”
Side note, parenting teens requires a close partnership like this, especially HURTING teens. He has the answers and wants to help! I would ask the Holy Spirit for guidance frequently, lingering with the Lord and His Word, trusting He would show me what I needed to get through that day. I would get on my knees (and still do) to pray scriptural promises and ask the Holy Spirit to pray perfect prayers through me, praying in the spirit. (Romans 8:26-28) I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt this time spent in prayer BROKE things, revealed things that needed brought in the open, lined things up perfectly and still does to this day. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what our children need, I’m a vessel for Him to work through me to teach AND minister to my kids. As my Helper, I also NEED Him to help me to know when not to react in anger to the outward behavior! I need the sensitivity to know if it’s really a deeper issue going on.
Offering this question, deeper issues began to break open. You could hear the sadness in her voice as she relayed an incident of sneaking out in the middle of the night and meeting someone she’d only ever met on Snap Chat. As imagined, nothing good can come from that. She began to open up to feeling unloved, but couldn’t articulate why. If you’ve read any books on teenagers, you probably know that when they say “I don’t know”, they really mean it. Their brain development cannot always articulate why they do certain things or feel the way they do. My ears heard words I never wanted or thought I would hear from my then 15-year old. We were sorrowful - hurting for her and broken as parents. More than anything, we hope to protect our kids from damaging situations - and this incident made us feel the weight that we weren’t always going to be able to do so. But we could trust the One who could bring the healing.
The next morning, with everything in us, we raised our hands to God, the lifter of our heads. Worship is our “go-to” in the hardest of times, shifting our perspective from the situation to the God who can bring help to the situation. It reminds us He is BIGGER. This began our intense, fervent prayer journey. We found ourselves on our knees for answers and wisdom.
Little did I know, the downward spiral was just beginning. This would mark one year exactly before having to take her to mandatory safety at the residential program. (see “Ally’s Rescue Intervention” blog entry)
Where was this dangerous behavior coming from, why was it back???
That night, I was to attend my women’s small group, and everything in me did not want to go. However due to a commitment, I was obligated to go. Funny how God had me commit the night before. He knew I needed to be there! Mid-sentence at the end of the night, I broke down sobbing uncontrollably. These precious ladies immediately surrounded me and began to pray. I can truly say the next morning, I felt the heaviness lift to face another day, trusting He would lead us through and out! The enemy would NOT win, the power of God at work on our side was greater.
The best thing we can do as parents is position ourselves to be ministered to, ESPECIALLY in hard times. Whether it’s going to church, going to small group, listening to messages or a worship night!
How was my child feeling unloved?? She had just had a daddy-daughter date, and thrown her a fun Galentine’s party to invest in something she valued - time with friends. What I’ve learned through this journey is Teens/Tweens are processing a LOT of stuff. It’s when their brain development shifts and they start reasoning, trying to make sense of things for themselves. After some counseling, things broke open even more. Our girl had started reasoning through some damaging things that happened to her and our family when she was five, involving a church. Internal hurt and the root of rejection was becoming the filter through which many other things were being processed.
We were advised, it was time to talk about it. She was old enough to know every detail, rather than have the fragments she did as a child. Putting things together as best she could, inwardly, she had concluded a long time ago, everything that happened to our family was her fault. Unreasonable lies were said about her as a child regarding innocent, curious child’s play between her and a friend, who happened to be the daughter of one of the staff pastors. Immediately after the incident, we were on the same page with the same story. Days later, their story changed and twisted, resulting in her best friend being removed by her parents from her pre-school and her classes at church. I remember her crying in her car seat, asking where her best friend was and if she could please call her mom. No 5-year old should feel the weight of trying to fix something out of her control. She was being treated as unwanted, as was our whole family. Little by little, they began to remove us from everything we were involved in.
Before this lie, she had 2 great interviews to attend the church’s private christian school. This was a natural step for us, all our friends were sending their kids and we had family there as well. The school administration of course loved our sweet, fun-loving, soon-to-be Kindergartner. After the lie, things started to shift. On the way to our last family interview to conclude kindergarten admission, we received a phone call. It was the school secretary letting us know, something came up and they would need to reschedule and let us know when. In my gut, I had a deep uneasiness. A knowing that something was really wrong. Something was being said about us and I didn’t know what at the time. We had served faithfully for over a decade, my husband served on and off staff, we weren’t “strangers”. Something just wasn’t making sense.
A few days later, I opened a letter from the school informing us that our 5-year old child wasn’t welcome at their school. I sobbed looking at this denial letter in disbelief. I didn’t understand what was going on in the least bit. Total rejection over a lie. Ally was excited to go to school with her friends, and loved touring the colorful rooms. I can’t believe the extreme to which things were being taken from her.
Once there was nothing left to take from our family, or remove us from, we were told we weren’t welcome there anymore. And just like that, in one fatal swoop, we lost all our friends, our church…basically our life and existence. Maybe you can relate with being lied about and feeling absolutely helpless to fix things or make it right. We love to remember the story of Joseph. Sold by his hateful brothers, lied about, forgotten about in the prison, yet God was with Him and had a sovereign plan to position him to save many lives. He can be trusted to right the wrongs!
Close friends told us not to contact them ever again, or would ignore and act like they didn’t know us when we’d bump into them in public. We found ourselves alone in that season, yet God comforted us, letting us know this was a season of transition and someday, our joy would be much greater than our tears. We had a deep sorrow, having never walked anything like that before. I’m sure our daughter witnessed our sadness at times. We had NO idea all that she remembered, nor that she was carrying this as her fault for a decade.
Fast-forward to 15-year old Ally. As we shared the painful details of what happened, soft tears made it evident we were hitting sensitive territory. She was truly hurting over this. We finished off by saying, “Ally, it was NOT your fault, this was not YOU...those crazy people lied! We don’t blame you and we don’t wish we were back there. We are glad for where God has brought us now!”
She shared her own vivid recollection of horrible memories, shedding light on things we were unaware she remembered. Ally informed us, “I lost everything too.” Her happy, bright, sunshine world went totally dark at 5 years old. All over a lie.
The damaging view of God and the Church drove the deceiving battles within, deciding that the physical church = God. And if the physical church rejected her, then God did too. Believing God did that to her, introduced a belief of not being able to please Him, so why try? This was the exact loophole the enemy would want to use to pull our girl away. It’s not God, it’s imperfect people!
The more she believed she was rejected and unloved the more she no longer cared about herself. The more she experimented in the world, the more lost and hopeless and too far gone she felt. You could see the back and forth battle of wanting to live for God, getting personal revelation and direction for her life, to getting sucked back in the lies that she wasn’t going to be able to make God happy, so why go for it? I’m telling you, that girl is called to BIG things, and the enemy was scared of her finding the truth! That she IS loved deeply, valued, accepted, and has a unique purpose that will bring joy beyond her wildest dreams.
Up until getting her to safety this year, we didn’t realize our all-in commitments at our current church were deepening the resentment towards God within her. Unfortunately, we had gotten out of balance in our zeal to be active in ministry, with long weekends on top of working during the week. We love serving and we love ministry, but the health of our kids is certainly more important. I could tell at that time, she didn’t want to hear from us how God’s ways for living were better. I believe it was because she didn’t feel she could trust Him. After all, if she believed God did that to her as a child, it would be hard to believe He had good things. I knew in my heart that God was going to use this year to prove He loved her greatly and could be trusted. He was going to win her heart back personally. The picture that came to me was like a spouse that had been cheating, and had to win their partner’s heart once again. It would take time and consistency. And our full focus as parents.
We are incredibly grateful the Holy Spirit began to expose these root issues of rejection as the source of the behavior we were seeing. But just like home restoration work, let’s say a hidden leak - finding the source and the damage it’s caused is just the beginning, with much work ahead! Restoration work can get messier before getting to the finished product - it’s a PROCESS.♥
Coming next time…what God did on our very first visit!
//BONUS INSIGHT. To all who would want to use this incident as an excuse to not go to church, let me add some things here. :) Church hurt happens. I want you to think about your workplace. Are there frustrations, misunderstandings, disappointments, etc.? Of course, because there are people working there! People mess up. People have flesh, attitudes, trouble communicating and those things can lead to hurtful situations! The Bible says if we never offended anyone with our tongue, we would be a perfect man. (James 3:2) Because not one of us is perfect, that means we all have offended with our tongue. Yes, me included.
The other thing to point out is that Satan is The Accuser of the brethren. (Revelation 12:10) He is constantly putting accusations in our heads towards other people. “Look what they’re doing, they did that on purpose. They think so-and-so is more talented than you.”, and on and on to try and stir things up among God’s people.
Ready for this. He WANTS you out of church. It’s part of his strategy...church hurt and accusations...all to keep you AWAY from church, where you would learn, grow to become more and more mature in Christ, and in your effectiveness as a believer. One thing is for certain, a sheep is safest in a flock. The one alone in the field is most at risk to be devoured!
Never let him (the enemy) win! Find a healthy church to grow in! It’s not people or the church that’s the enemy...it’s Satan.
