God has called me to a place where:
- I spend some days sitting in waiting rooms for hours so that children can recieve the medical or psychologocial care they have been without for too long.
- "Progress" may look like a youth yelling and screaming about the pain in her life...finally.
- Grocery shopping takes two Wal-Mart baskets, two hours, and well over two (sometimes three) hundred dollars. That is for the week.
- I respond to alarms at 1:30am because she's afraid of the dark and is having bad dreams, but I can't just let her crawl into our bed and fall back asleep.
- A single ounce of pain from the life of a youth is heavier than all the pain in my life put together. In some ways, I am younger than the girls here.
- I am a minority. I don't usually like the music, I don't understand all the slang. The way I relate is certainly new to most of the youth here.
- Getting to the core issue is harder than it used to be; there are so many layers.
- Telling them to pray isn't enough. You have to teach them. Telling them God loves them isn't even close to enough. You have to show them.
- You never complete a task in one sitting. My To-Do list is 3 pages long.
- I have to say "no" when I don't want to. I have to give consequences even when its hard. I have to enforce rules whether or not they are understood.
- Going to the store as a family is a stressful activity where I wish I could grow 10 more eyeballs, 4 more hands, and 3 more mouths.
- Almost EVERYthing is a new experience - either for the youth or for me.
- Faking being a morning person is sometimes necessary.
- Being positive about the person who may have abandoned, neglected, abused, or refused the youth in our care is a necessity.
- Attitudes and mistrust grow on trees.
- The unexpected is now the norm. An uneventful day is eery.
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