God’s Diamond Among Rocks

 The battles kept coming. Possibilities started to look bleak. The stress of this had taken a toll on my health, and I had little time to think about me. Every morning I needed God’s grace to deal with my child. I didn’t know what to expect next from Titus. I had no idea how I’d make it through the day. But even in the midst of ‘Hell’, (the way I sometimes felt) we had victories. The troubles my son brought were molding me to become stronger. While facing it head on, it felt like it was going to take me out. I was no ‘Wonder Woman’. I often wonder why God chose me for such a task like this. He saw something in me that I still am not able to see like Him. All I knew was that I could not have done it without my Heavenly Father. Mistake after mistake occurred, but I can tell anyone that the lessons learned will never be forgotten. God knew my heart from the beginning, and He works with the heart.  He gets all the glory, even when the endings are not what I thought they would be.

My heart stayed broken for Titus. Many times I didn’t know what to do.  I just kept praying, asking God for guidance and constantly repenting if I thought I was making too many mistakes while disciplining Titus. Long before Titus came, I had to learn that we need to ask our children to forgive us, and I had to practice this constantly with him.  I learned many valuable lessons! I was absolutely growing along with Titus. My parenting skills were being developed quickly, through a lot of trial and error. No one could have prepared me for such a difficult child as he. God had a sense of humor. He saw something in me from the very beginning that I couldn’t see. Today I’m beginning to see it a little better, because I see my self from God’s stand point. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (NKJV).  Look at His sense of humor: He chose me, a single female of color, not making a lot of money and in the worlds’ eye handicapped, to be the mother of a very energetic boy with some deeply rooted problems. Now I can sit back and laugh, because I understand some of the reasons for why God chose me. The growth I have experienced in God couldn’t have come in any other way. I am honored that He chose me.  I know deep down inside that Titus is going to be great, well rounded, and doing great exploits for God.

The first six months I lived daily, reading the Proverbs. I also stayed before the Throne Room. A day with Titus was like this; he did horrible things from the moment he got up in the morning until his bedtime at night. I would be taking away privileges left and right. The spanking came for things he kept repeating such as touching children inappropriately; stealing the same thing over and over again, or picking up gum off the street and eating it. Things continued to get worse.  I kept thinking; ‘what did I get myself into.’  I thought I was having a nightmare, and that I was eventually going to wake up. I would tell my mother that I didn’t know if I could handle him. My mom already saw that Titus needed a loving family and structure. She couldn’t bear the thought of him bouncing from foster home to foster home, which we knew would happen because of his behavior. She told me that we have to try to encourage him, that he’s only a little boy and that he needs someone to love him and work with him to eradicate all the hurt that he was feeling. My mom was very supportive.

I cried myself to sleep many nights because I realized my son could not have a “normal life.” I couldn’t have sleepovers for my son, and I could not let him go to a sleepover. 

When we were asked, I had to tell friends that he still had too many behavioral problems, and he would be a little too much to handle. Usually that did it. I had many talks with him.  We cried together many times. I would encourage him. I explained I knew certain challenges he had were learned, and that those who taught him these inappropriate behaviors may never be caught. I probably will never find out who the perpetrators were, but all I wanted was for my son to get past this and reform his behaviors.    I learned more about my son, and a little of his deep hidden pains.   I found out that he was dealing with a lot of inner rage and anger.  He would lash out violently. Whenever I went out of my way to show him that I loved him- going above and beyond my duties as a Mom- was when he did the worst things possible. At first, his actions made me an emotional wreck. I usually didn’t know what hit me. I allowed his reaction to do this to me, until one day it occurred to me that whenever good came his way, or was done to him, he would act badly. It was about four years since the day he came into my life that I realized deep down he probably felt he wasn’t worthy of good things. Since he associated the loss of his Nannie, and family as extremely bad; and may have concluded that maybe it was because “He was bad.” So whenever I or my family did anything at all good for him we held our breath, expecting a bombshell of negative behavior shortly thereafter.