Jesus was talking to a crowd of people about John the Baptist. He was telling them that, basically, they were fickle. He said in Matthew 11:
"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: " 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."
Either way, the people were angry. John the Baptist was as holy as they came.... he lived a simple life in the desert and did the bare minimum -- ate grasshoppers for goodness sake. Jesus came and lived the opposite way -- he went out to the bar with the guys. He wanted to be where the people were. And they said negative things about him as well.
Tonight we took our son in residential out for dinner and bought him a pair of shoes. It was a reward that he received for accomplishing a task that was supposed to send him home with us.
The result? He was highly excited about his upcoming move. We were sad and depressed. He accused us of not being supportive. I said as little as I possibly could and so did Bart. I mentioned, because I thought he’d want to know, that a girl had run away and that her mother was calling our house this week to find out if she was with him. He said, “I wanted to make this a POSITIVE visit so please don’t bring up anything from the past.” I tried to quit talking.
So, we buy him the shoes and take him to dinner and when he has it all and is on his way back to the center, Bart gets to hear all about how awful we are once again. With shoes in hand and a full belly, he walks away from Bart refusing to say goodbye, refusing to give him a hug, refusing to be respectful.
The irony and the reason for the Scripture text above, is that he would have turned it around had it been the other way. Had we said, “Mike it is GREAT that you get to move four hours away from us” he would have brought it up later and used it against us, about how we couldn’t possibly care about him or we wouldn’t have been so happy when he was leaving.
For the last 10 months he has told us that we should not be accepting the recommendations of the professionals to keep him where he is. He has made us feel horrible for not going against them. Now his quote tonight is, “I don’t know why you can’t be happy for me when this is what the professionals are recommending.”
We cannot win. We will be mistreated and verbally abused whatever we say, whichever direction we head. We are the enemy...for now . . . after seven years of trying our hardest to do our best with him.
SO, we played the flute and he wouldn’t dance,
we sang a dirge, and he didn’t mourn.
Regardless of what we do, we’re the bad guys, we’re responsible for his negative actions, but can’t take credit for his positive ones. We are the ones to take from, to use, to mistreat, and to blame.
But just as Jesus loved that generation of people, fickle as they can be, we will recover from our hurt and we will continue to love him. We will continue to support him emotionally. We will attempt to do what we can and hope against hope that some day we will see the purpose in it all.
And I will continue to encourage people to adopt hurt children, because what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger . . . and what we gain from the joy and the pain, is worth it.
Deborah Hage one of my favorite adoption/attachment speakers, ends her seminars by singing the chorus to Garth Brook’s song the dance -- and though I don’t know that I believe our lives are left to chance, I do think that if we knew the future, we might skip out on the pleasure, in order to avoid the pain.
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance.
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