Changing Lanes

Saturday, January 28, 2006

God help Mindy!

Last night I found out that back in November my fifteen year old niece had sex with a fifteen year old boy from her school. She gave up her virginity. This happened while her mother was at work and my niece was left home by herself during the day.

When I heard that last night I was sickened and disappointed. This morning I woke up more angry about it. She has had a rough childhood so far, her parent's marriage was on the rocks most of the time since she was about 1, and they have been divorced since she was about three. Her father, my brother, is an alcoholic. Her mother is a druggie and a whoring slut that has prostituted herself and cannot seem to exist without some sorry excuse for a man in her life.

Jayleigh and I have tried to help Mindy out as much as we can as her aunt and uncle. We help to keep her in decent clothes and shoes. We have had her live with us when her parents lives are falling apart and they cannot handle having her around.

Mindy's parents fight about when they have to be stuck with her. It seems like they spend most of the time alternating between ignoring her and brow beating her. When she is with us we try to give her structure and show her what happily married
Christian people are like.

I am disappointed in Mindy because what she has done is something that her parents would do. She either had sex because she has seen the loose ways of her parents or because she wanted to because of her adolescent hormones. Maybe she did it because she did not feel like she could say no. According to my brother, she had said that she flirted too much with the boy and played with fire and got burnt. God knows that it does seem like her mother cannot say no.

Her parents just seem to give into their weaknesses and impulses without any higher aspirations, morals, or control. I just thought and hoped and prayed that she would rise above that.

If she will give up her virginity so young and so easily, where else will she fall short and give in? Can she resist the temptations to drink, smoke, or do drugs?! Jayleigh and I have feared that she would fall into these pitfalls. We have prayed that she can graduate from high school without getting pregnant first. That seems like such a low standard.

I am angry that she has let herself down and may not even realize how much yet because she is so young. Now that she has had sex can she resist having it again? Is she prepared for the repercussions of having had sex? Kids talk and she could be stuck dealing with a reputation of being easy and a slut. I remember hearing about the easy girls in middle and high school and I remember how I thought they were trash. I love Mindy so much and she deserves better than that.

She has visited the church that we attend and at least sporadically attends a couple different church youth programs. I am afraid that she just sees it as an opportunity to socialize and get away from her parents.

I remember the hormones that I had as a teenage boy. I remember dating Jayleigh from the time that she was fourteen and I was seventeen. We did a lot of messing around and we were certainly not saints, nuns, or monks. However we never actually had sex until we were eighteen and twenty and had been in a relationship for almost four years. It was before we were married or officially engaged and it was wrong, but we were committed to each other.

Mindy seems to change boyfriends every week or two. I used to think that was a good thing becuase as Mindy, herself had said to Jayleigh, if a girl goes out with a boy for very long he is going to want to do stuff. Now she has done stuff and still apparently changes boyfriends as often as some people change bedsheets.

I pray that she will take God's mercy seriously. I pray that she will ask Jesus Christ to come into her heart and begin to live for a higher purpose. She needs love and affection so much. I want her to know that God still love's her perfectly. I want her to know that Jesus loves her so much that he suffered, died, went to hell, and defeated the power of sin, death, and the devil to save her from her sins. That includes this sex thing and every other sin that she has committed and ever will commit. I want her to ask Jesus to forgive her and come into her heart.

She is a beautiful creation and God can make her a new creation. She can be like a virgin again and she is worth it. She does not have to give it up to have boys like her, in fact I am sure that they will have more respect for her if she does not.

God has plans to prosper her if she lives for him. God can work all things together for Mindy's good as long as she loves God and works according to His purpose. I pray that instead of living for her friends or boyfriends or for her own gratification that she can live for God.

It is very difficult to get through your teenage years and face all the peer pressure and temptations involved, but God can help. It is much better to have Jesus as your friend and God as your ally than to face all those trials by yourself.

God bless and keep Mindy! I have to put her in your hands, because I cannot make her do anything. I can only be a willing and ready servant prepared to help her and show her the alternative to a worldly life that will use her, wound her, and leave her feeling empty.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Just Another Day

Life has really been pretty good over the last couple of weeks. Between Christmas and New Year's we were able to get the insulation inspection completed and passed in our little addition project. Then I bought the drywall for the ceiling and rented a truck to get it home. The next day I rented a drywall sheet lift to put it up.

There is a bit of a story there.

When I walked into the tool rental department of my local home improvement store the rather rugged, ruddy, and weathered looking gentleman working in the department took one look at me and knew that I did not have a clue. I asked to rent a set of drywall jacks and he looked at me with a mix of skepticism and wonderment at my terminology. He asked if I wanted a sheet lift. I tried to think fast, but that is not my forte. Let's see I have sheets of drywall that I need to lift up to the rafters.

Ok, sure that is probably it.

He hauled out four different component pieces of this thing, which was not at all like the jacks that I had a been a party to using once before in my singular previous experience of helping to drywall a ceiling. That one looked like a cross between jack stands and goal posts and had separate cranks to raise the sheets on either end. This one had one crank to raise the sheet and the top was kind of shaped like a capital H with arms that could be extended.

I loaded this thing up and hauled it home with a dozen and a half Krispy Kreams. When I got home my Father-in-law was already there. I unloaded the erector set and then he put it together while I greeted our guests. I was caught here again because my Father-in-law asked me how I wanted to hang the drywall on the ceiling because I should know.

Wait for it.

I should know because he had given me a book on drywalling a couple of weeks ago for Christmas. I said well I have not actually read THAT book yet. As you can see we got off to an auspicous start.

Note that I was the only one of the 5 guys that were working to hang the drywall that stuck with it all day, and I hung the last sheet by myself at about 1 AM so that I could get the sheet lift back to the rental department before having to pay any extra charges.