Return to the Storm - Someone Precious

I couldn't find my breath. It was a recent photo of her. She is smiling, which I love, except her smile is a bit paralyzed on one side. Her eyes seemed beyond tired. The hat on her head makes her look so small. She's beautiful, with straight, white teeth. Her head is cocked to the one side she's suddenly weak on. She's posed in front of the flag she defends.

My own grown, married daughter, smiling at me through a small bit of paper. I partly miss her. I'm partly afraid to ever lay eyes on her again. She's been running with various crowds I personally avoid.

But that's not why I don't know how I'll ever see her again. By the way, I'm not anti-military-people, but I was sure she should not emulate her father's past career. Some people aren't physically able to endure it without suffering long term damage. And we are worshippers, not fighters. So I thought.

This is what makes the picture so hard to look at. She should have become the young author blowing my mind. God is her judge. I accept this. But how is the writing mind under the hat? How is her heart?

She called before the letter arrived. Her sister had fun hanging the phone up on her. She doesn't like the volley of questions coming at her from someone she forgot how to trust. at least she got to speak her own mind on the phone without fear of being smacked for it.

We don't like physical displays like that or words like "I hate you" but what can be done if they are teens scheming to move out and lying as they go? The kind of solutions we can morally deploy don't involve fear or corporal punishment.  But then, preaching just can't cut it if they aren't listening and don't respect us.

Then what happens after they leave is reverse-grounding.

They can fuss and resist, but ultimately they are still anti-grounded. The more boundaries are violated, the stronger and longer the grounding.

I also have to deal with the character assassinations happening to us. If we are being misrepresented as abandoning them when they actually rejected us, how can we pal around? It's so confusing.

The storm misses us.

Merry Christmas to the storm.

We miss her, too.