Prayers for Kaitlyn

The power of faith, of prayer…………… This topic is one so personal and messy for me.  I have a strong love/hate relationship with my faith.  I always have.  It’s my classic passive / aggressive reaction to a strongly emotional topic.

Faith is like that.  It is emotion.  It is inextricably tied to everything without a tangible link or presence of its own. 

When I hear stories about the miracles played out in the lives of others, I want to rage at the unfairness of it and delight in the magic of it all at one time.  Today, I am pleading for a miracle for Kaitlyn.  She needs one.  I would sacrifice my future, my life even, to grant her a miracle of recovery.

In the last year, I cannot discern what part of her struggle is from her mental illness and which part is from her drug addiction.  They are inextricably linked.  I just want to put my arms around her and make it all go away.

Sadly, there is no happy pill, no instant fix, no cure that comes easily.  Recovery and healing will take a lot of hard work…………..and it’s the type of work that even mature adults struggle with.  I cannot imagine being 18 and having no perspective of tomorrow.  Kaitlyn cannot deal with future.  All she can do is react to the immediate need.

I have always been the exact opposite.  I cannot deal with immediacy without having some sense of a future outcome better than where I am.  I need a roadmap, a plan.  Ok, I’ll say it, I need a happily ever after.

I want Kaitlyn to go to rehab.  As I listen to success stories on KLove, I want to physically drag her to Teen Challenge.  I want recovery.  I want to call into the show and tell them my 10 seconds of good that is Kaitlyn's recovery and healing.  I desperately love my daughter.  

Relapsing

Here we go again, Kaitlyn, down the same path that you've been down so many times before; and I guess blindly, naively I believed that a lot of work a lot of prayer would make a difference.  I don't know, maybe it does, or has in your case.

It is so difficult watching you struggle and watching you make the same mistake over and over and over again especially when so many people are on your side and have tried to intervene for you.

Someday I know you will look back, and you will realize the love that has been poured out to you; and I know that you will realize that you did the best you could with what you had.  You will also understand that there's really no blame - it is what it is.

I'm not mad at you; I forgive you every mistake you ever made because I do love you.

I am sending this prayer into the universe that God will just cradle you, cradle and bless you until you can stop being so angry and before you destroy yourself, before you destroy your precious, precious future.  I pray for you because you were amazing and beautiful and so wonderful.  I miss you more than you'll ever know. 

I wish things were different, and I wish that you understood how hard it is as a parent to be at this point and make a decision to let you live your life on your terms. I can't do it for you, and all I was doing for the last six months is enabling you to continue in your addiction.  Someday you will see that I did the best I could for you.