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One of the hard things I face is to make sure none of the kids feel less favored than the rest. All the kids come from something broken, but for some it was much worse than others, and some handle it different than others. It's often hard to practice the discipline side of love, the hugs and good feel side of love just seems easier. But God reminds us that if you spare the rod you spoil the child, God will not hesitate discipline us for our wrong doings for the salvation of our souls.
I remember a particular night one of the older boys became angry over over one of the smaller ones, and he was determined to beat him up. I am sure that both where guilty but the truth rarely comes out. I was determined to teach the older boy that violence was not the way to solve a fight. I tried reasoning with him that as the older one he needs to be an example to the younger ones. Nothing worked, I had to physically restrain him until he calmed down. He was steaming angry with me. How my heart hurt during that time I can not explain. My spanish was next to none existent so to have a real talk with him was almost impossible, this made it all the more difficult. After a while he calmed down enough that I could leave him to his thoughts and I could ponder what to do next. After all the other boys where finally down I noticed that he was restless and came out waking around in the living room. With the help of my translator app on my ipad I asked him if he was still angry with me or the younger boy, "no" he shook his head. iPad in hand I asked if he would sit down with me on the couch. Desperately searching God for what to say I started typing and translating sentence by sentence, he would read the translation and wait as I worked on the next one. As I spoke to him in this way I could see his heart was growing warmer, I told him I know how alone he feels and that it hurts my heart to see it. I told him how I can bear pretty much any physical pain without shedding a tear, but seeing him hurting I could cry for hours. He never responded with words, only nodded after reading my words. After a while he said he was tired and would like to go to sleep. I said good night and went into my own room and prayed for him. The next day and every day since then has been a new day. He helps me out with the younger boys, he does his best to tire them out to get them to bed early so he can spend some time with me personally. My heart melts every time. Today just me and him went into town to and I bought him a music cd and a set of head phones for his disc man. At the end of every day he will say "thank you, mucho thank you mucho thank you Jake for every thing" I can't tell you how that melts my heart. Only God can do that for some one, I may have been a body that God used but it has nothing to do with me. God touched his heart in a special way. We need to pray for God to do this for more people. Is he perfect from now on, not even close. But that's not what it's about, he now knows that he is loved by God, That's what it is about.
I love you in the name of Jesus. Bless you.