Yesterday was a very exciting day. It was December 16th, which marks John's 3rd month in Teen Challenge! I cannot believe it has been that long already. He's already 1/4 of the way through. Something to celebrate. And, since we can see each other at his 6th month mark, I view it as halfway through. I will see him in 3 months! The thing that makes me laugh is that when I went to Holland for 12 days, John acted like he was dying. That felt like an eternity being away from each other. HAHAHA. Little did we know.
Hahahahaha.
Oh, and my apologies in advance for hogging John on his 6th month break. Like seriously I probably won't even let him alone to go to the bathroom. That was a joke. But I wouldn't put it past myself to wait outside the door and talk to him the whole time. We have a lot of catching up to do in one weekend. So if you don't see him or talk to him, sorry not sorry. And I mean that in the most loving way.
I want to take a moment and share how thankful I am for each of you who follow this journey. There are so many people giving encouraging words and praying for us, and a lot of you are people that I don't even personally know. It's incredible how God works. The funny thing is that John doesn't even know that there are all of these people so involved and caring about our lives. I don't think he realizes the amount of people who read my blog and send me messages, etc. When he is able to, I will show him all of your messages, comments, cards, and texts.
There have been a few times recently when things have felt almost unbearable. Something will happen with John that makes me upset. Nothing major but when you combine it with us not seeing each other for 3 months and still not being able to talk, and with still processing it all, it just makes some days hard.
For example, we found out about something he lied about even before he was on drugs. That made me question even more if I can trust him again. And I couldn't talk to him about it either. Thank God for my mom and that we are so alike. She was able to discuss it with him and ask him the questions I would have asked. He was truthful about all of it and it was a huge relief.
Or, he will get written up for something stupid, like wearing a white t shirt out in public (for some reason that is against the rules), and I will get frustrated that he's not taking anything seriously.
A friend of mine posted a song on facebook right around the time of all of that. It's called If You Fall by JJ Heller. Here are my favorite parts.
You are a house that's broken down
You are a house that's burning
And everything in me wants to run
But that's not love
When I am tempted to give up
I choose love
There are a million times I want to give up and leave John with the mess he made. When I don't want to go through the hard parts, when I don't want to go through the process with him. But I remind myself when I am tempted to give up, I choose love. And it's not easy to do. A lot of the time I'm glad I can't see him cause all I would do is yell at him. But that's not love. I wrote those lyrics on my memo board as a constant reminder.
One last thing. I would like to ask you all to pray for John. Last week was really rough for him. He was getting sick and felt awful and that led to him being in a bad mood all week. He barely talked to my mom when she visited him Sunday and he refused to look at any pictures of me from vacation because it would make him even more sad and he would want to leave. It's very hard on me as well because I am totally helpless. Please pray with me that he gets out of this little slump so he can go back to being himself.
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