Tip of the Iceberg

Sometimes my 11 year old kids throw tantrums for hours and hours at a time like a 2 year old would for reasons that a normal sane person couldn't pinpoint.  Sometimes my kids get behavior reports from their principal for tantrums they throw at school.  Sometimes my kids break windows or throw chairs.  Why?  There are probably a million reasons but the majority of them have to do with trauma from events or abuses in my boys' pasts.  Each of my 7 boys comes from a hard, difficult, and painful past.  One might think that if something happened to a child at the age of 2 or 3 or 4 years old that they'd be "over it" by the time they are in 6th or 7th grade.  Well that's just not true.

The current behaviors that I see in my boys everyday are just the tip of the iceberg of what pain and hurt they harbor inside from their past.  I find myself struggling everyday to keep this in mind when I want to come down hard on certain behavioral outbursts they display.  The truth is - my boys need connection and encouragement and a helping hand instead of a lecture. They have NO self confidence. They need a hug instead of punishment.  This to me feels unbelievably counter-intuitive.  They scream at me and throw things at me and honestly the last thing I want to do in moments like that is get on my knees to get unthreateningly below their eye level, speak with a low-calm voice and tell them how smart and handsome and intelligent they are and that this current behavior is not a true reflection of the "real boy" on the inside that I know exists. 

 My precious, handsome, smart little guys are just a fraction of who God created them to be and how he created them to thrive and process information because of trauma from their early childhood years.  Beth Guckenberg has a video where she describes this.  click here to -- > check it out on youtube

At the end of the day, God is the only rock upon which I can stand.  There is nothing God can't do.  He holds the oceans in the palm of his hand.  Jesus came to heal, restore, and repair.  In Matthew 10:8 Jesus commanded his disciples to spend their lives "healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, and casting out demons."  My boys need Jesus to enter into the dark places of their past and restore them, repair their trust, and heal their wounds.  And in the meantime, I'm pretty sure they are going to keep throwing things and getting called into the principals office - so what?  I know that is not who they are - they are just hurt right now.  Somebody needs to come and pick them up.  God grant me the energy, patience, passion and power to help these boys heal and grow.

Pray for us.  Pray for restoration.