All of my children are "Gifts from God" not in the "problem child" sort of way, but in the fact that God really blessed us with all three.
All of my Gifts from God are the kind of gifts that "keep giving...."
(I really hate that phrase "easy child" because I recognize the only perfect righteousness that any of us can have claim to is a total and complete gift from The Only Perfect One)
For board purposes, our "easy child" consistently gives the gifts of reciprocated love, abounding joy, gratitude, respect and honor. She as proven over and over that she is trustworthy.
Our difficult child-s have in the seemingly very distant past have given glimmers of joy... fleeting moments of gratitude... and specks of appreciation. Most consistently however they give us the gifts of consciously walking out the decision of forgiveness when feelings of unforgiveness pop up. They give us the gift of being on the extending end of unconditional love through very tough circumstances. They give us the gift of trying to understand their brand of mental illness and how their brains work or perhaps it's best described as fail to work.
difficult child's have taught us that true-love isn't always a warm fuzzy feeling.
My "easy child" wanted to celebrate her 21'st by going to a local pub and she wanted her first drink to be "irish coffee". She tasted it and YUK! She didn't want another. She'll cook with wine and enjoys sips off other drinks. Every once in a while she'll enjoy a mixed drink or a glass of wine. She almost never finishes one.
When difficult child-daughter turned 21 she began drinking early in the day. She arranged to have her closest drinking buddies (she's never been good at keeping "real" friends) meet her for an all-niter at a house she was "dog sitting" at. We warned the homeowners she'd be turning 21, we advised that we didn't think it'd be wise... Home owners looked at us in disbelief... "we TRUST her!" wow. They'd been warned.
We got a call from difficult child-daughter in a panic... she had woken up and the front door was wide open, and the dog was GONE! "ALCOHOL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!!!!" Yeah, right.
That was just one small event (of many) before her major Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) meltdown. In hindsight we learned that Reactive Attachment Disordered individuals have faulty "cause and effect" brain function. She may to-this-day believe her 21st birthday all-day-into-the-night-drinking-"experience" had NOTHING to do with where she ended up the next day.
It's sad...
What seems sadder still is that I can't talk about my "easy child"' truly STELLAR life (graduated with HIGHEST honors, nominated valedictorian, employed in a wonderful job, etc, etc, etc...) without bringing up the difficult child-s.
It appears I can, however, talk about the difficult child-s without bringing up easy child...
That has to change.
