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I ASKED FOR BREAD AND GOT A STONE
"For a parent, having a precious child messing with the drug world is living a life of terror and fear."For a parent, having a precious child messing with the drug world is living a life of terror and fear. You get to watch your baby girl change for the worst right before your eyes. Deception and lies begin to take the place of sweetness and honesty. The darkness begins to slowly snuff out the brightness of her life and personality. The decisions that she makes are skewed by the draw of pursuing an altered state of consciousness. An authentic and honest conversation with my daughter is no longer possible with the interference of her urge to flee from truth. Engaging in self-destructive activities takes precedence, and is highly admired and encouraged by a totally “new” class of friends.
As a parent, I was constantly preoccupied with “What must I keep doing to protect my child from herself?” My thought-life and physical-life were always in a state of “high alert” to intervene to keep harm from coming her way. Then it came down to the ultimate agonizing decision to save my child by not “enabling” her anymore and tell her she is on her own.
Prior to this, I am thinking and contemplating, “What must I do to break the spell she seems to be under? I am losing my daughter, and I am doing everything in my power to save her, and nothing is having an impact.” A sense of helplessness infiltrates my insides, and anxiety takes over my emotional state.
The not knowing where-she-is or how-she-is-doing is almost more than I can bear. All day everyday, I am praying for her and pleading with God to watch out for her since I cannot anymore.
“Please save my baby, Lord! Watch over her and keep her safe,” I beg.
Day after day, this agonizing goes on, and I struggle with the coldness of my insides in the middle of the summer.
Then one day, my heart leaps with joy as she comes to visit, and everything in me wants to hold her and hug her and never let go.But I restrain and guard myself lest I get drawn into something she wants that will do her more harm than good. After a little while, she is gone but returns two days later to gather up special things for an ill-advised beach trip.
The next day, a deputy sheriff walks into my backyard while I am mowing. He asks me, “Is there a shady place we can go to talk?” He then struggles to tell me the driver of the S.U.V. my daughter was riding in passed out at the wheel. My nineteen-year-old sweet baby girl was killed somewhere on the side of the road in Alabama . . .
Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Matthew 7:9 NIV
Written 5/6/09 - I ASKED FOR BREAD AND GOT A STONE - Tommy C. Prince
3 comments:
Dearest Tommy,
Thank you for how much you love our baby girl (and our precious boys). Thank you for sharing from your heart some of the agony we have lived and are living that rips our hearts into.
To read the agonizing terror and pain spelled out by you so pointedly and articulately is a relief and a devastation at the same time. The relief is to have somebody I love so deeply “get it,” understanding the same pain I endure as I live in a world that seems to eschew the actualities of mortality, death-of-one’s-precious-child, and grief. The devastation is reading words on paper that, in living them, have ripped the very heart, if not the very life, out of me and re-discovering they have done the very same to you, my beloved, her doting father.
I am not sure which is worse, the terrorizing grief of losing her before we lost her, or losing her life for the rest of our entire lifetimes—but together, these two losses simply bowl us over into what-seems-like-complete devastation with lives that seem almost completely debilitated. How God can hold our two lives together that we have watched shatter to pieces before our eyes, is beyond me. I trust that He can do that which I cannot conceive as He is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful . . . and He assures us that He can and will.
Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible . . . all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Thank you for your candor, opening to us your heart of pain and very human struggles with God over the loss of our baby girl.
I love you and thank God for you,
Angie
Thanks for sharing this post. I often wrote and thought about how I got a scorpion, since the death of Desmond stung so much.
As I reread this entry for probably the 4th time, I looked at a photo my mom send of the memorial garden for my son. He had a rose bush with one rose, just in time for my first mother's day without him. And he had his name carved into a stone.
Yep. I have a stone instead of my baby boy.
My sister has gone through an almost similar nightmare. Unfortunately, she does not have the faith or comfort of his father to share her grief with. It's been ten years since her youngest son was shot and killed, after leaving out of the house in anger because she would not give him money for crack-cocaine. She still finds it hard to speak about it and can't bear to see his picture. Of course, I can't say I know how either of you feel--but I do keep you and all other parents who have lived through such devastation in my prayers. Stay there for each other, and God will also be there for you. Remember, we are not on this earth for eternity, but will move on to eternity some sweet day. In the meantime, let us remain cognizant of the many blessings we have now and love our love ones to the fullest as our Father in heaven does.
Peace, Light and Love....
C.
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