God always answers prayer. Sometimes it follows the path we think we want it too and sometimes it's not quite what we envisioned but it's an answer nonetheless.
I still haven't figured out which category we fall into. I'm not sure if I'll know for a long time.
My brother is home. After hours and hours of discussion between my brother, my parents and psychologists at both the hospital and the STF he was transferred to, there was enough "assurance" to bring him home. As much assurance I guess you can have in these circumstances.
We are delighted to have him back home. He is my brother, a part of our family and there is huge gaping hole when he's gone.
That being said, I am having trouble making sense of it all. Praying that God will continue to lead us through this foreign territory. It's not the miracle cure that some may envision. We will most likely never know the depth of the situation and with that consideration it does seem quite miraculous that he is even home. A mere two days ago it looked like he wouldn't be home for the next year at a minimum.
He still has a great deal of anger that has multiplied at an alarming rate since being hospitalized. He still is a young teenager that has just barely started going through the awesomely wonderful adolescent barrage of hormones. And as of today, he is not taking any medication for the depression diagnosis.
It's tough to say whether the depression is being triggered by certain events or if certain events were triggered by the depression. It's a vicious cycle. One that I don't think he even knows the answers for.
He claims we are no longer his family, but I guess we will do until he's old enough to do his own thing or decide to forgive us.
My parents had quite the discussion about the cutting that had quite recently begun to take place and an agreement was reached that this would no longer occur. Apparently, "everyone does it" and "it's not a big deal". I'm not sure if I have ever felt so old than when I heard that. The fact that "everyone" consists of a great deal of sheltered christian kids blows me away. Regardless of how much truth there is to those statements, this generation seems light years away from my own and seems to age and carry a great deal more emotional baggage at a much younger age. Gone are the young and innocent care-free youth.
In the meantime, his room had to be searched for remaining sharp objects that he hadn't already handed over to the cops at their request the weekend before. Some of what was found a parent should never have to see, my only solace is the fact that task had to be completed while my parents were with him. I will surely bear the image of a particular military switchblade to my grave.
I will certainly continue to update the blog on the situation but I think that one day soon there will be other, more fun and frivolous posts occupying my mind. I would ask that you all continue to keep my brother and our family in your prayers. My older brother is getting married this Sunday (surprise, I don't know if I've mentioned that at all) and at this point my younger brother is refusing to attend and we are not sure if we need to get a babysitter or if one of my parents won't be able to attend. Looks like we need another miracle intervention...
Thank you all for your prayers, kind comments and emails! I am slowly getting back to everyone, but we are all quite sure that we wouldn't even be where we are today if it weren't for everyone's prayers! The kindness in the blog world continues to catch me by surprise. Thank you so much!
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