Four months have passed since Haley arrived home from her two-month missions trip to Africa this past summer, and so much has happened. The last blog entry here told of Harris's dad's passing, but then two weeks after that, Heath was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and a whole new blog was started: http://www.westerkamp-family.blogspot.com/. Everyone's focus has kind of shifted towards Heath, and in the meantime, our daughter Haley has been left to process a lot of emotions on her own. She was thrown right into her role as one of the swim team captains and then started her senior year of high school just 10 days after arriving back on American soil.
Probably a couple months ago already, she decided she was going to make one of those paper chains so she could take off a ring per day and thereby count down her last days of high school. All she really had to go back to school for was gym and one more class, so her plan for a long time already has been to graduate early in December. Many people, including her friends, seemed bothered by her decision to do that, and she was baffled why so many people would look at her funny or try and convince her that she would regret it later and that she should just enjoy these last few months in high school. It took some time and some confident assurances from us, but she finally came to grips with the fact that if she and we were all okay with her decision, then that was just okay, and she no longer needed to be bothered by the fact that everyone else seemed to be bothered.
What made it harder was when everyone would ask her what she was going to do once she was done, she really didn't know for sure. That made her decision sound even more crazy! She just knew she needed some down time, some carefree time to go visit some family, and more time spent with God than what she was getting. She knew she had two jobs that she planned to fall back on, and she knew she would finally have some time to think about college or future ministry plans or whatever. Heath has been going to a school on a sweet scholarship program, and once it came to light that she could do the same next fall, the decision was made very easily in her mind that she would do that too. Even if she goes there for a while and gets some of her general education classes out of the way for free, she will give herself some time to contemplate her next move in life.
Lately we've all been reminded every day of her countdown, and she quite often will share that fact with the utmost amount of joy, exuberance, delight, loudness, and the most uninhibited enthusiasm as only Haley can do! She's always been our most flamboyant child, but she has just been over the top in excitement lately. However, if she hasn't been in that realm, she's been the most aggravated, irritable, and impatient human being to be walking around the house, and it seems as though there hasn't been much even-keeled attitude in her for a while. It's caused more arguments than usual, and we've had a really hard time just connecting on some of the normal things in life.
In my mind, part of it was just chalked off to all the other stressors going on around here in the last couple months, but for the last couple weeks, it seemed to be getting worse, so I've been more diligently praying for insight and wisdom on the matter. Any attempt by me to help her even out seemed pointless, and last Thursday night we clashed again big time. Afterwards, God reminded me of a time when she and I had gone out to a restaurant together and that she had just opened up and talked and talked about everything on her heart in that environment. I sensed that my prayer for wisdom was being answered in that moment, and I started looking for a way to make that happen again.
Saturday night after coming home from hanging out with her group of friends, who happen to be an awesome, stable part of her life, the house was quiet and peaceful, and I asked her if she would consider going to something at church with me on Sunday night and then maybe we could go grab something to eat afterwards. She picked up on it right away that I was just wanting to have a big talk with her, and before we knew it, we were sitting here having a major discussion in the living room. It all started with me asking her why she seemed to be at such extremes lately and what was really bothering her, and her immediate response was, "School."
Before Africa she was our child who took her studies most seriously, but this fall we have seen the most careless and disinterested attitude towards her studies that we've ever seen. One class in particular has been very difficult for her, and it took a great amount of coaxing to get her to ask the teacher for some help, and that is not like her at all. She shared with me that she really could care less because she knows she'll still qualify for the free tuition next fall, she thinks that sitting in Spanish class will never help her long-term because she has no desire to ever minister in Mexico, playing dodgeball in gym for 90 minutes is dumb, and Office Aid is just a waste of her time because all she's doing is running notes around the school to help out the staff.
She also shared with me that she's just really, really tired of hearing all the pathetic stories of what people are doing on the weekends. "I don't want to know where kids are getting their drugs or where the parties are or who's having sex with who. No one shares my morals and my values, and I just can't stand being around that anymore."
After listening to her rant for a while, I quietly said, "May I share an observation?"
"Sure."
I said, "Let me guess. Your heart lies somewhere between here and Africa, and you have no idea where it should end up. You know you're a homebody, but you know your heart aches for those orphans and child soldiers there. You know you'd like to go help them, but you don't know when or how or for how long. You're all of a sudden going to be given your freedom from high school, and you're just not sure what that's supposed to look like. You're not sure if going to school for psychology will be your thing or not. You know you want to get married someday, but you have no idea when that will happen and to whom. You just have this big ball of emotions fighting with each other on the inside, and you don't know what to do with them all."
As I was talking, her tears started to trickle down and then started flowing. Only because of God's guidance in my spirit was I really able to pinpoint every area of frustration for her, and she was floored and amazed at how well I really knew her and ended up feeling relieved by it. Someone was finally able to understand what all was going on inside of her and talk with her about it. We were able to move into a peaceful and sweet time of conversation.
She said, "Mom, no one understands! No one! I'm so tired of people thinking they have it so badly. I'm sitting on a couch, for Pete's sake. I'm sitting in a warm home with people who love me. I have everything I need. There are children in Africa who are chewing SAND and running over pieces of broken glass without shoes on, but they are happy! They have nothing, and we have everything! I'm so tired of people grumbling about what they have to wear or not getting along with their parents. I just don't get it."
Our church recently had messages on tithing and giving, and we are in the midst of a capital campaign, so these thoughts came out of her mouth: "I don't understand why we should be giving to our local church so we can build a gym. We have so many churches here, and they would give anything to meet in a tiny fraction of our building. I just don't get it, Mom."
"I don't know why I have such a heart for Africa. I don't get it! I love being at home here with my family, but I just know I need to help those child soldiers in Sierra Leone or Uganda. Maybe I'm supposed to live with a family over there and help them. I know it's a scary place and tons of horrid things happen there every single day, but I just don't know why I feel I have to go there sometime."
Then the crux of the matter: "Mom, when I was over there, we had an hour every morning with God where all we did was spend time in the Word, worship, and pray. Then we'd go out on ministry all day and then come home where we would have a worship service under the African stars and hang out with everyone that had the same love for Africa, the same love for Jesus, and the same mindset all the time! Here we're all just busy all the time, and even though my intentions are good, I just can't find the time in my schedule to do that. Life is so simple there, and we just go around doing all these stupid things that don't even matter."
So much truth coming out of my 18-year-old's mouth.
Finally all we could do was talk about how to best utilize the next eight months of her life. Take time for peace and solitude. Take time to process what happened there and what goes on here and then figure out how to be content wherever she is. Take time to slow down a little and enjoy life. Take time to read the Word, study, and pray. Take time to be still and listen to what God may be saying.
I think that's probably a really good idea for everyone.
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