It is with a broken heart that I report that Moreen has chosen to leave AIM House. She has had a rough life and has struggled to find her place in the house and to live with in the rules that make life with 15 kids organized. When she came to us 4 years ago she had been taught many strange things because of cults she had been exposed to and had received basically no education as a 14 year old girl. Now, 4 years later she continues to struggle in school because of her age related to her classmates and due to the face that with 3 years of school she’d been placed in the 6th grade. We had many tutors work with her but she had grown to believe that she was stupid and couldn’t master the subjects she was tested in. When we worked with her we’d see break throughs — her doing the best on a timed multiplication table — and then see it vanish so quickly. She also had grown to believe that she was being blamed for problems that were not part of her doing — even when you stood right in front of her and told her bluntly that you weren’t blaming her that it was a whole family issue she had difficulty believing it. Her attitude got in the way of her fitting in well and making friends. In many ways she’s a normal teenager, wanting more independence than she was prepared for and rebelling against rules and authority. But it’s so painful to watch her walk away.
All we can do is pray that she changes her mind and returns and that we will have means to help her at that time in a way we haven’t been able to. We’ve spoken a lot about this with eachother on staff and with Eva, our house mom. We are all broken hearted and in pain watching Moreen walk away but we can’t force her to stay. We can’t force her to accept the help we are offering. We can’t force her to understand how her life will be different and difficult without education. We can’t make her understand the protection offered to her by living in the house. We must trust that we have shown her the Lord’s love and taught her scripture and how to walk in Him and we must trust that He is there with her even when she is far away. Above all, as she returns to her relatives to live, we pray that she makes wise choices and that the Lord will protect and guide her.
As I’ve spent time thinking and praying and crying about this these past few days the Lord has shown me how often I act like Moreen. He is standing in front of me offering His help, His love, His plan but I think I know better and I walk away. He could force Himself on me but, in love, He won’t. I realize how often I have grieved His heart by my rejection of Him and how the situation with Moreen gives us a small prespective of the pain we cause Him everyday — by not spending time with him, by treating prayer as a last resort rather than a first defense, by trying to do things in our own strength that would be so much easier and better done in His. Why do I continue to act like a rebellious child when the God of the Universe is offering His perfect help, love, grace and provision? God forgive me. And yet everytime I, the prodigal daughter, return he is there with open arms.
Please join us in prayer for Moreen as she lives with her relatives that she would remember the Lord is with her and that He loves her and that we love her as well. Pray also that she will know we are here with open arms ready to love her.
