Michael Vick- healing families one magical football game at a time.

Last night I had one of the nicest, most meaningful talks I've had with my oldest son in a while.  All thanks to Michael Vick.

Last night I loved that man just a little bit...and not just cause I creamed my fantasy opponent and broke 200 points all thanks to his almost 60 point performance...it's hard for me to say that cause I have no respect for him at this time.  He's got a long way to go before I'm willing to say he's a good person. Great QB ABSOLUTELY! But a horrible man!  And I say that with all the hope that he can use his past mistakes to make a life worthy of the talents, skills and opportunities he's been blessed with!

Anyhow, the Als and I were sitting...ok, they were sitting, I was jumping, hollering and making a general crazy out of myself...watching the game.  At one point I said can you believe this guy was in jail like a year ago? Which began the discussion of how long he was in jail and all the stuff surrounding that.

Now we've had a rough couple of months with our boy.  He's been testing our boundaries, commitment, love and sanity...on a daily basis.  So most conversations with him are...challenging.  We've been so busy just trying to keep him from making bad choices and driving us to therapy, that we haven't really sat down to just talk about stuff. That's where Vick comes in...opening the doors of communication!!

I then said to my boy "Did you know a person can be convicted of a felony and face up to 2 years in prison for tampering or damaging a Bald Eagle egg and yet hundreds of thousand human babies die through abortion every year and its ok with our society?"  He thought about that for a minute and said, "That doesn't sound right.  But what if a girl is raped? She should be able to get an abortion, its not fair for her to have to have that baby."

Now, I know what my beliefs are and my kids know what my beliefs are...but in that moment I realized they know the what, but not the why.  I can tell them this or that is right or wrong, but if I fail to get them to understand why...well then its just pointless.  Worse, it's exactly what drives us to rebel against out "parent's beliefs" when we're old enough to be exposed to opposing schools of thought.  If I can't express to them clearly the whys of what I believe, then I'm not helping them develop the reasoning skills to make these decision for themselves. 

I explained to him that only 1% of all abortions are made by women who have been raped or abused.  About 4% more are due to health problems of the baby or mother.  I told him that in these situations the parents have an absolute right to choose what they feel is best for them.

But that means that 95% abortions are just a means of birth control. ...those I don't understand.   There is NO reason why abortion needs to be used as birth control. In a day when condoms are available for free at the school nurse, when family planning clinics are everywhere and provide practically free birth control pills and numerous other birth control methods, for people of any age regardless of parental consent, there really should be no need for abortions.  I told him you don't "accidentally" have sex...which, of course, made him giggle...you choose to have sex.  So then, to turn around and say " I was too irresponsible to use birth control and therefore the solution now is to kill this baby." is wrong. 
I told him I believe God has a purpose for EVERY baby conceived. 

It completely blew me away when he replied " well then if God has a plan for them and they're aborted, He must be ok with that."
I said "oh no baby...God never wants that.  God never wants us to do wrong, hurtful things...but He lets us cause He wants us to grow.  Every choice we make whether right or wrong, He will use it to make us better people if we let Him. We, however, have to be willing to work in the messes we make.  We have to be willing to say hey I really screwed up God, help me make it right!"

And this is where the magic happened....
He said, real quietly..." I haven't done that in a long time."
"What?" I asked
"Told God I'm making a mess and asked for His help....its a lot of stuff.  I can't really fix it all."
So I just said "You can't always go back and fix it all.  But God promised you that tomorrow is a new morning.  Where you can start fresh.  Once you face God with everything you've done that you think is wrong, He promised to forgive you and, better yet, forget it like it never happened.  All that stuff doesn't matter to God, you matter to God. Your tomorrow matters to God.  That's why whatever you did yesterday or last week or last month God wants you to face and accept and repent for, not because He decides what your worth is because of it, but because once you face it He WILL use it to make you better tomorrow."
He just laid there quietly for a little while with his head on my lap and  then just said "Ok."
God gives us little moments like this, I think, to remind us that its never too bad, too far or too hard.  Its amazing to me that, when you least expect it, you can have a conversation that allows you to share your heart and see into your child's.

Now if we could only get him to the point of not driving me to medication!! Baby steps...baby steps!!