Who would have thought a heart could break in so many ways....

I guess I should have known that being a mother would absolutely, with certainty, break your heart in so many ways. I love the quote, "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." By Elizabeth Stone. I have always held the belief that you do not split your heart when you have another child, you just grow a new one for each one. We don't split our love. The heart has the greatest ability to grow love.

I have a child that is trying to find himself. Or maybe he doesn't believe he is lost. He has some serious issues that will need more help than I can give to resolve. And until he wants the help I cannot do anything for him. Except pray. And I do that. Every night I fall asleep praying for him. I pray for him while I am brushing my teeth, while I am folding the laundry, while I am driving to town.... you get it... I pray for him! But I cannot fix him. I cannot carry his pain. I cannot make him see the answers to his quest for peace. I cannot make him see things rationally, because right now it is impossible for him to be rational. I cannot get through the wall that he has built around him. That wall, he believes, is for his protection. What he does not understand is that instead, it is hurting him. The pain is so unnecessary. Or is it? I don't know. Maybe the only way to grow is to hurt. But it hurts to watch him grow. It causes me physical pain to see him keeping himself on the outside. It hurts me to watch his pain as he feels he is missing out on something. Isn't it funny that we are the ones that hold ourselves back, but in order to justify our pain we blame others instead of digging in to fix ourselves? The only person that can ever truly hurt me, IS ME! That's how it always has been. I am willing to stand beside him, hold his hand, walk through the fires of hell with him if that is what it takes. But I refuse to allow him to verbally or emotionally injure the others that live in my home. He jokes that he is like the wind, he blows in and blows out. His joking is another way to cover the pain. He has to joke, because if he felt the pain too deeply or for too long, he may have to examine why he feels the way he does and admit that he needs help. Until he admits he needs help, there is nothing we can do but love him, and pray for him. He is part of me. I carried him in me for 8 1/2 months. I watched him fight to live in those first few days of his life. I prayed for him then. I held him at night when nobody else was around. I watched him grow. I knew even then that there would be pain for him, that he would have to deal with emotions and feelings that others would not always understand. I knew even then that though I would want to protect him, save him... I wasn't the one that could do that. I will just love him, and cry silent tears after everyone is sleeping and I am alone with my heart and hope that someday he will understand the true man waiting inside him to come out.