Caring Heart: Lost in the Loss

Some children seem stuck, unable to move forward or even see the door to a new and better future. This is for those parenting such children.. 

Lost in the Loss

He is so sad.  He is so lost.  He cannot look past all the pain in his young life.  He views himself as an accumulation of things that have gone wrong.  He sees a childhood mountain of lost joys.  I can only try to imagine how that must feel.  He certainly has had pain and had far too many losses.  Emotional bruises that I can never truly understand and that last far longer than the broken bones or physical bruises.  But if he is ever to heal, he must learn to see or find or create a dividing line in his life.  He has to choose.  If he stays locked in the belief that he is and always will be a victim, he will limit his future happiness.  He needs to recognize a time when things began to change, when his life has begun to improve.  When good things have happened to him.  But he doesn't .  I don't know if it is a choice or not.  Bur he doesn't, or can't, admit that things are better.  He can't even acknowledge that they might be better one day.  Uncloud his eyes.  Tear down the bricks around his heart.  Loosen the shutters in his mind.  Let him see hope.  And one day... let him see joy!

Excerpted from "The Caring Heart Speaks: Meditations for foster, kinship, and adoptive parents" by Gail Underwood Parker   Artwork by Anna Parker David from the book cover.