I recently was hurt but words that someone told me that were spoken and I did not hear them.

I am a leader at a local Celebrate Recovery, I teach the teens and lead them in their recovery, while working my own as well. We have worship, a lesson, and small group where the teens share about their recovery, their hurts, habits and hang-ups.

Healing takes time, some teens are dealing with a lot more that we see on the surface. The times that we live in are not the same as they were when we were growing up.

The depression and suicide rates in teens have risen over the past fifteen years, when God told me that this was my purpose, it made sense.

When I was in high school, I experienced a great trauma, where someone that I knew committed suicide, it was shocking and unreal and that was the first time I had experienced that feeling, those thoughts, and the questions that came after.

I am a mother of many children some biological, some bonus and some adopted, some fostered and never adopted, but I love them all the same. I have 5 kids that I have raised that are mine and my husbands, but many children that have come to us because they needed us for a time, a moment, a season.

Whatever season they are in, they know that they can always come home, God placed me in the perfect place to understand the feelings inside, because I once felt them, I have delt with them with my own kids, and in my own recovery walk.

I am not perfect, I am not equipped or prepared most of the time, but in the bible, most of the people that God used to tell his story, to perform miracles were not perfect, they were imperfect, unprepared and unequipped. God gives us the tools that we need to carry out his assignment.

When I heard that “people are complaining that the teens, specifically the boys are not healing, they are too disruptive, and do not work the program.” it hit me hard in the heart. I immediately went to defend my kids

These kids work hard, they share hard things and they go through hard things, you do NOT get to BARGE in and take over like you are GOD, sir…., you DO NOT get to MICROMANAGE me just because you have a savior complex

you need to SIT down and work on your own recovery, I will not back down from this, this is a hill that I will die upon.

When a teen is sharing and you barge in they shut down, they immediately stop sharing and maybe, just maybe, the thing that they were about to share is the thing that keeps them off the ledge, the thing that saves their life, and you walked in and said

ITS NOT ENOUGH, YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH, ITS ALL ABOUT ME AND WHAT I WANT WHO CARES WHAT GOD IS DOING IN THIS ROOM

for that, I say boom on you!

Hey, it’s me, I know it’s been a while since we last spoke, but I have been working on me, because I was in a dark place and I wanted to see the light again, I just didn’t know how to tell the light how to get in. I am here now and the light is shining, I am here and I want you to know that I am ok, I am going to be OK

To the outsider looking in, you may not think that I am doing it right, but I do not answer to you, I answer to a greater power, and no man can speak against what the father has assigned, and until the day that he calls me home, I only answer to him.

I am doing the best I can and if that is not good enough for you, maybe you should talk to God, I no longer seek the approval of man, and you sir, have some work to do.