Healing the Hurting Heart

Be Careful what you wish for - you just might get it. I was thinking earlier today that now that I've started this blog, nothing noteworthy is really happening in our lives. HAH! I should know better. Tonight we had what I hope is the resolution of tensions which have been building for a while.

Our son, 10, has a lot of problems with controlling his anger. When he gets mad, he gets scary mad. It takes hold of him and doesn't let go, and he can mope, pout, stomp, etc. with the best of them. There is such a darkness behind his eyes when gets this way, that I almost don't know what to make of it, and I fear where it will lead someday if he doesn't learn to control it. Lately, everything and anything has set him off, and we've had hours of pouting and stomping over big things (like striking out at the baseball game), and little things (like being told to keep all 4 legs of his stool on the floor.) We've had reports from school of refusing to listen, running off, kicking things, throwing rocks, and he's usually our calm child! We've tried working with him on strategies to break out of these moods, but sometimes it almost seems like he enjoys wallowing in them.

I know something's up - he's a deep thinker, and generally he goes through these rough patches when he reaches new levels of maturity and tries to process his feelings about the past. Our kids were raised mostly by their birth dad, and our son has felt that loss, and the anger, most deeply. I challenged him the other day to see if he could figure out what was at the base of his anger, so we could deal with it, rather than putting out these continuing smaller fires. Tonight, when being confronted with yet another round of issues from Day Camp, the dam finally broke.

I wish I knew how to heel the pain in that heart. He says he's mad at his birth dad, but what he really is is sad and confused. He is trying to reconcile anger and love, sadness and joy, and he doesn't have the words or experience to properly process it all. So we try to help him, and tell him it's OK to have these conflicting emotions, to love his birth dad and be mad at him all the same time, and to love us, too. That his parents would want him to love and be loved. That it's better to let this pain out than to allow it to fester in his heart. And sometimes I wonder if our love is going to be strong enough to conquer the pain. I try to fill him up with our love, the love of God, a sense of purpose and place in the world, and a sense of the blessings that surround and fill our lives. But he is our "glass half empty" child, and it is often a hard sell.

He asked to read the letter from his birth mom (given to them on their last visit with her), and cried his little heart out. I am so torn, between wanting to support him and his love for them, and feeling jealous of that love. But it's not about me, it's about him, and as I reread that letter I thought about how hard it had to have been for her to make the decision to terminate. Realistically, it would have been involuntary if it hadn't been done voluntarily, but still, it was a difficult, loving choice, which avoided a lot of drawn out proceedings. I can't imagine making that choice.

But, at the end of the day, I get to tuck him in and see that gorgeous smile, the one that reaches all the way to his eyes, that is the Lord's precious gift to me. And I know he is going to make an amazing grown up!