Love Notes

I wrote a love note to a teenage boy tonight. It wasn't even to one of MY teenagers. It was to my son Sam's best friend. I know what you are thinking, that you are a little concerned. Don't be. It was totally appropriate. It was a scary thing to do though. After all, as a mom of teen boys, I don't want to appear to be as involved in their lives as I really am. If only they knew. But barring them reading this blog (and it's not been on their priority list) they have no idea how much I really know. I plan on keeping it that way as long as possible. Or at least until they move out and except for occasional background checks, (dad is an FBI agent) they are out of my sight!

My love note was appropriate and necessary. Sam's bff is having as rough a time as anyone could. None of it is his doing and none of it, from the world's perspective, is going to end well. Apart from a miraculous intervention from God (and of course He can choose to do that if He wants) it will appear to him that nothing good could possibly come from all the suffering that his family is experiencing. Right now, he doubts everyone and everything. And, he should - from the perspective of a 15 year old young man. But he needs someone who loves him almost as much as his dad does to remind him of unconditional love. And that he's got people committed to him for life regardless of how he feels right now. He needs to understand that no one is watching him with a note pad recording what he says and does and qualifying his behavior in order to report what a good or bad boy he is and whether he's worthy of my love or the love of anyone else around him.

It was scary though. Scary because I was brutally honest. I was pushing for him to be the same. I wanted him to know exactly how I felt about him and there's a real chance he wouldn't "get it" and just think I was incredibly uncool. That is not a label I'm striving for at all! Not that I'll be cool at any cost but for Sam's sake, I'd like to remain under the "cool" column! I wanted him to know that he could tell me anything about how he felt, what his worries were, and especially his view of what he felt God was doing or not doing in his life. I knew that because I wasn't a family member he might feel more freedom knowing that he wasn't adding any stress to my life by sharing his thoughts.

The ball is totally in his court now and if he doesn't do anything with it, that is perfectly OK. He knows now how much our family loves him and that we will always love him. He is part of us and that won't change. That's the love note I was trying to write. I hope I succeeded.