Reading Nancy’s post this morning, some thoughts came to my mind. I also receive a great deal of email from despairing adoptive parents who’ve given all they have to their children who then seemingly reject it all, sometimes hatefully so, trying to hurt the only people who ever cared about them.

My pastor talked about Jesus bumper stickers or crosses, doves and fish symbols on our cars, people who wear crosses so the world will know they are Christians. I’d like to quote Scripture to prove a point, but maybe it’s just better if I quietly try and live my life by attempting to demonstrate love, the Golden Rule, and other Biblical precepts I’ve been taught.

What I may have learned, the single one most important thing, after being a Preacher’s kid and reading my Bible for most of my life, would be in the realm of forgiveness. The understanding of that one simple concept may be what has gotten me through some hellacious wars and battles around here as I struggle mightily every single day to help my kids rise above their previous circumstances, the very same situations that they seem to want to revert back to such as a hopeless, uneducated, marginal existence.

They lash out at me, usually verbally, sometimes physically, but never if they don’t spot an older son that they know will immediately stop them. Buck up at Mama and they know six older sons will bowl them over. But that then gives them the physical altercation or release that they seemed to have needed badly enough to act in a menacing manner towards me.

Could I forgive the lies, the bitter words, the venom and the hatred if I were not a Christian? I doubt it. My human nature would explode into vengeful fury probably if I did not now know better. I don’t believe I’d turn the other cheek, nor forgive and still love. That’s where faith comes in, when I’m absolutely positive in my mind and in my heart that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to do.

Probably the strangest deep assurance that I have involves my own simple-minded, deeply held belief that all my 39 children will turn out fine; household salvation will be attained, and all my efforts will be rewarded solely by the accomplishment of that one goal.

That’s enough for me. It’s enough to get me up each morning and face each day’s problems. I do not blog but a very small percentage of what we face. Many times I wait for weeks, months and years until a situation is resolved enough to talk about, or at least less painful.

Sitting in Sunday School this morning next to my one birth daughter, who also rebelled against both the church and our family for years, now she’s instrumental in holding me accountable, helping me constantly, and being all our family needs her to be, I couldn’t help but feel emotionally and spiritually reinforced once again to face this upcoming week with some serious stuff to go through that I probably won’t talk about until I figure out what we should do. As a class we are studying this book, The Believer’s Authority.

Nancy and others, I believe that our kids, by their very oppositional, sometimes disturbed natures, want us to continue fighting for them to be all that we ever dreamed they’d be while they seem to resist all our efforts with every fiber of their being. I’ve seen too many successes to believe otherwise.