Selfish Wishes...

We visited Caleb on Thanksgiving day. It was the first time the children had seen him in almost seven weeks...
It was more than difficult to leave.
William clung to his neck, "I want you to come home with us, Daddy! When will you come home with us?"
It had taken Ellie almost a whole hour to warm up to Caleb, she didn't really know him, and the goodbye was terrible for her.  She finally had her Daddy, and she just wanted him to hold her. Three hours in a cold, sterile room did nothing to help her confusion about the position her Daddy plays in her life...

The following day, she wandered around, looking for Daddy, asking for Daddy, and said, in the most heartbreakingly sweet voice, "Where my Daddy? I miss him!" As if, somehow, in her almost-two-year-old brain, articulating that something was missed would mean it could then reappear....
The visit was nice, the leaving was hard, the next few days were equally rough.
And then, the plotting began, as I struggled to gain a foothold amid all the rushing emotions from that visit.
"Perhaps that isn't really the best place for Caleb.
Maybe I made a mistake sending him there."
I began to focus on all the failings, in my perspective, of his current location... I began to try to come up with a way he could be here, with us. Indeed the money issue would be solved, because we wouldn't be paying to have him there... He could do some work here and there when someone trustworthy picked him up... If he had no money, no phone, no car... And he could make a little bit each week, the financial mess would clear up and not get worse... Maybe he could be a Daddy, maybe he could be here and finish out the year, here...
But, as I plotted, I also prayed.
If I brought him home early and he od'ed, his blood would be on my hands... This is the longest he has gone for 12 years without a relapse... And IT ISN'T ACTUALLY THAT LONG AT ALL!! :(
And Christmas is coming... That is a hard time, his family gets together for two days, all of them, under one roof (a big-rented-roof), and to know he will not be there is hard.
There is so much hard about all of it.
The program is not perfect, but no program will ever be perfect.
There are money troubles and no offers on the house and and...
Finally, there are these beautiful children longing for their father, and I can do nothing to ease their pain.
And I think, "perhaps he is there right now, because there is someone who needs to hear him, who needs to share this time in life as a moment God will use in their journey..."
I have spent most of my married life jumping in and trying to be one step ahead, trying to control the outcomes to yeild the least possible amount of pain...
I have thought that I had a better answer than God and I have not been willing to submit to His plan... My sin, every sin has consequences...
It isn't possible to stay one step ahead of pain.
So, I submit my selfish wishes to have Caleb back doing this here, I submit that to the God, the God of the Universe who is the only One powerful enough to overcome a heroin addiction.
I submit my dreams, hopes, longings, and desires to His Will.
Because He knows best.
And I don't want to mess it all up this time.
The emotions will pass...
Life here with the inlaws will become more routine...
The Holidays will pass and the intense reminder of our separation will, hopefully, lessen as the family gatherings pass...
I will press on, leaving it all up to God... And when I stumble and grab it all back, I pray He will gently remind me to return control to Him, because I never really had it in the first place...
This is a hard season.
This is, by far, not the worst season.
But this is a hard season...
I miss him.
We all do.
And I selfishly want to get to know drug-free-Caleb... Now...
Not in eleven months from now...

"Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed, which God sows in thy heart, and let that be in thee and grow in thee and breathe in thee and act in thee, and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that, and will lead it to the inheritance of life, which is God's portion."

-Isaac Penington, 1681