When You’re Captive in an Unrelenting Hard Circumstance

“Get out of my room,” she said with her hand her hip. “No, I’m not getting out or your room. I’m not your servant and you need to be respectful.” D’Andra pushed me and tried to force the door to close on me.

I walked into the living room to get a break and regroup. My brother, Leo rebuked me for not disciplining her after she drove my car last Saturday. “You should have grounded her,” he said. I had disciplined her and said, “She doesn’t go anywhere. What am I grounding her from?” D’Andra stays home when she is not in school. She has refused my multiple offers to take her to the movies, a water park, the zoo, the beauty salon or shopping for clothes. The only place she likes to go to is her favorite Thai restaurant, Sweet Siam.

Dealing with the constant emergency-level type situations such as her attempt to drive my car across the street and the steady, unsolicited advice from well-meaning people like my brother has me living in a high-stress zone that most people aren’t meant to survive in.

Trying to get help while you’re in this high-stress cycle of managing artificial emergencies created by a willful teenager with disabilities is a lonely road. I’ve been on the phone leaving numerous messages with mental health providers in Kansas City. The voice mail maze and un-returned calls speak volumes as to the low priority of my daughter’s needs.

I’ve fought thoughts that she would be better without me and the stark loneliness. I cope by reading my Bible everyday, praying and writing down scriptures. I’ve been camping out in the book of Lamentations which isn’t you’re typical ‘happy clappy bless me’ book of the Bible.

Lamentations is just five chapters but the book was written by the prophet Jeremiah as he watched his nation become slaves of a pagan empire, Babylon. The book was written during the third deportation of the Israelites and the takeover of Jerusalem. The glorious, powerful nation of Israel was stripped of their identity and hurled into a foreign culture.

I’m not equating my little life skirmish with a nation of slaves but the anguish tinged with hope in the book is something I can relate to. I love this particular scripture,

Lamentations 3:22- 24 “Because of the Lord’s faithful love, we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say, ‘The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him.'”

Today I woke up from last night’s fight with the knowledge that because of His faithful love, I’m not going to perish in this situation. He has new mercy for me and His faithfulness is great because the same daughter that told me off last night was cooperative and compliant when getting ready for school.

Today I know that the Lord is my portion which means He is walking me through this. He hasn’t dumped me because my life is too hard or complicated. He hasn’t rejected or abandoned me because their are no easy answers. He walks with me.

Because He walks with me, I will walk with her. I will walk with my daughter when she is yelling at me. I will walk with her and not reject her when she is acting out her own hyper anxieties. I will walk with her, believing for her and standing with her for God’s goodness just as He stands with me.

I may be captive to a circumstance I didn’t ask for, but with Him, I’m free to love, hope and receive mercy.