Camp was over and we were all back home now. Life continued it’s hectic pace. Kids were talking about and preparing to go back to school. While the summer had been more fun than I had ever expected to have at my age, I was anticipating getting my house deep cleaned, some time to myself, a minute to just sit and think and process. God was using me and I knew it. I still struggled with the inferiority complex that everyone else was more ‘spiritual’ than me, but God was breaking me out of that shell. The prophetic was coming faster, and much clearer. I was seeing pictures, uttering things that were so on that the person I was speaking to would just crumple in a heap before the Lord either in repentance, worship or both. Camp had been another growing experience. I had learned the ‘protocol’ of speaking publicly and God was using me that way, in addition to doing individual ministry.

More than the prophetic though, my real gift is in loving people. I know that. I just love people. All kinds of people. Even if I don’t like what the person stands for, who they are, I can look past that, and still love them.

I don’t care for what Hillary Clinton espouses and I am upset about the fact that she has never before lived in or cared much about my home state, but is using it now, for her own political gain. I didn’t vote for her for the Senate of New York and I wouldn’t vote for her for President now. That is my right and I’m taking it. Yet, I still love her. I have seen her on TV giving interviews and I find her intelligent, articulate, and head and shoulders above the guy she is married to as far as personal ethics. Sorry, all you Hillary haters out there. I like her as a person and I can love her with the love of the Lord. I know she has her flaws, her inconsistencies, her political jargonizing (another word I just made up unless you heard it somewhere else). But in reality, separated from the political reality of CNN or Fox News, even her own political reality in her head, she is a wife, an emotionally abused one at that, she is a mother, she is a woman, she is a person. I can understand all those things and look past the stuff I don’t agree with. Again, I didn’t say I would vote for her. Politically speaking, I wish she would just go away and bake cookies for Bill and wait on some grandchildren from Chelsea. She and I are so far on opposite sides of the abortion spectrum that I don’t know if we could ever find common ground on that.

People say that is only ONE issue, Connie, there are so many more that you need to consider. When one believes that abortion is downright murder, how does one look past it and care about anything else? You want me to care about the health care crisis, the Social Security fiasco, other issues of the political realm that people are so hyped up on and think are so all-fired important? I’m sorry, you hand me a dead baby, so to speak, lay that crumpled fetus in my lap, via TV, pictures, the internet, and force me to face the murder of millions of innocent, unborn children, when the murder of even one would send me reeling, a baby who will never have the chance to take a breath, and then you expect me to care about whether I am going to get some piddly Social Security check some day? God, help me! What has happened to us? Where are our priorities? Jesse Jackson said it in 1976, ‘what fabric of society will we have twenty years from now if we allow this injustice to continue’. It is twenty years later and I don’t have to show you the fabric of society that we have. It is in front of everyone of us everyday. Killing our children didn’t make life easier or better. It didn’t free us from the epidemic of child abuse. Quite the opposite. There are more abused children today than there were in the boomer years and we are killing at least half of them to start with. Child abuse has not stopped just because we are getting rid of so-called ‘unwanted’ children. It has increased.

And who made up that lie that they were unwanted anyway? I keep hearing about how it can take up to ten years to adopt a white, undrug-addicted, newborn. Where are they all? Don’t tell me white girls ain’t gettin’ pregnant. I won’t believe you. I KNOW they are. A lot of ‘em. I’ve worked with teenagers for the past fifteen years and have five of them still living at home. Where are the babies? In the ground, man, in the ground. Dust to dust.

I agree with Ted Kennedy. Can you BELIEVE THAT ONE? I agree with the elder statesman of the far left. Who knew? He said, in 1971, that he believes that people have the inherent right to be born, to live, to grow old, and to die and that the abortion law should not be adopted. Humph. Isn’t that just a kick in the pants. Well, okay, he changed his mind somewhere along the way but let’s face it, when you are in public life, kind of like on the blog, words can come back to haunt you.

God knows the hairs on our heads, He keeps track of the sparrows that fall, and you want me to just FORGET about the on going holocaust of our own children? Isn’t that what the world did when Hitler followed through on his plan? Why is that so different? He killed them after they were alive, we kill them before they get the chance. Oh, but, Connie, we are saving them from being a poor, unwanted, abused child. You liar. That is a lie from the pit of hell. They did not ask to be born and they did not ask to die. You just want to play God because you don’t want to be bothered with all the backbreaking work of life. Children are life. Abundant life. They require work, man, I know that….more than most. But they are worth it. You can bury yourself in your new Porsche or Jaguar if you want to but it’s only going to rust. The one with the most toys wins? Sorry, heaven doesn’t take toys. Heaven doesn’t care about any of our measly, inconsequential, ignorant little pastimes and possessions. You are strutting around with that gold chain, feelin’ like Mr. Who-knows-what T, and the PAVEMENT is gold up there, baby! They are WALKING on what you spent a whole month’s paycheck to buy for your best girl for Valentines Day today! People are all that go to heaven after you die. People. People made in the image and likeness of God Almighty. Oh, Connie, I don’t believe in heaven or hell. You will, honey, you will. I promise.

If you ask any unwanted child who has ever lived in my house, they would say that they were GLAD that they were born. They were glad they had the chance to live. So what that life isn’t going so good right now, life gets better. The grave is never full. The Bible says that and Hitler proved it.

If you are so all fired up to save the children, WHY, in God’s name, is the county begging for more foster homes? If you can’t deal with “the system” why aren’t you out there, on your own, helping that family down the street, reaching out to them, bringing them food and clothes, visiting the mother and being her friend, as a way to show them you care, so that they will allow you to show them even more than that, like how to raise healthy adults?

I’ll tell you why, if you really want to know, and aren’t just reading my blog for something to do today.

It is because we are LAZY, SELF-INVOLVED, FOOTBALL WATCHING, HILLARY HATING, POLARIZED, SELFISH IGNORAMUSES, who have nothing better to do than talk about the issue and not DO anything about it. It is so much EASIER, so much more CONVENIENT to just kill them before they are born so we don’t have to deal with them for the next twenty or so years.

Oh, I feel so sorry for you. You have so much to do. So much on your plate. If someone was thinking about murdering YOUR child you would suddenly find some time, huh? This argument, I have heard it so many times I want to vomit, “well, Connie, I would NEVER abort my own child, but I think women should have the right to choose about their own”.

Okay, let’s see, what you are really saying is that your ‘little precious’ is more important to you than their snot-nosed, diaper pooping, hyperactive little bra….oh, I mean, ‘little precious’ so, you wouldn’t consider doing that to yours, but you will allow others that right so that you don’t have to deal with those little troublemakers in YOUR upstanding neighborhood. Whatever. One of the best friends my son has ever had was one of those town troublemakers. He was in foster care at an early age because his own father did unspeakable things to him. He is all grown up now, with two beautiful children. Should he have been aborted?

These same people that are so all fired up about abortion rights are the very same that picket outside prisons when a murderer is on death row awaiting the death penalty. Okay, now THAT makes sense. We’ll kill the innocent ones, but we’ll let the murderers live. yeeesh.

Yeah, blogging about it, incessantly asking rhetorical questions like, ‘what about the life of the mother?’, which is almost never the case, is just so much easier. When I sat down this morning to write I didn’t know this was going to come out, but now that it has I am not going to apologize and I’m not takin’ it back. It’s the truth. No one on the blogstream, no one in my life, not even my mother, who spent twenty years working for Planned Parenthood, not even my sisters, who won’t bring it up with me because they don’t want to hear it, can take this truth away from me. It is true and it is real and I’m sick of people talkin’ it and not walkin’ it. If you can’t walk it, or don’t want to walk it, okay. Just don’t jargonize about it. Life is too short, and there is too much work to do.

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In October, the girl from the troubled home who had come to camp on a scholarship (she was actually placed in my cabin which pleased both of us), was having some even more difficult problems at home. It was a perfect autumn evening and the youth were hanging at the local Christian coffee shop after youth group and I was there, as always. Another girl comes running in, breathing hard, trying to tell me about Deandra. “You have to help, Connie, you HAVE to.” Well, what was I supposed to do? My heart wanted to help, but this was out of my jurisdiction. Way out. At that point, Deandra was coming up Main Street from her house. I went outside the shop, saw her coming and walked toward her. She was crying, not sobbing really, but seething with hurt and anger. Something about her stepfather, she said. Something she wasn’t fully explaining, but I got this real bad feeling. I knew I was in over my head. You wouldn’t think a foster parent would say that. But foster parents do not normally deal with cases outside the system. We don’t do the social work part. We just do the ‘bake the brownies, make up the bed, set another chair at the the table part’. We wait for the “we need you” call and respond. This was not that. This was coming from somewhere else and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it.

She talked. I listened. I asked questions. She was in clear and present danger. This was not a slap on the face or even a punch to the stomach. This was more, much more. I didn’t have the whole story but my mind was spinning and I felt like I was going to get sick. I didn’t know what to do but between talking to her and the three or four girls who were surrounding me, begging me to intervene, I didn’t feel like I could just do nothing. I was vaguely familiar where her house was, but I had never been there. The two of us walked slowly back to her home, leaving the raucous crowd and the cluster of concerned girls. The whole way I was frantically trying to figure out what I was going to do, to say, when we got there.

Her stepfather was gone, THANK GOD. I didn’t have to deal with HIM. I was faced with this woman, so sweet and submissive, so soft-spoken, yet so clearly unable to deal with the situation at hand. I introduced myself and slowly began to ask questions hoping everything would just come out and I wouldn’t have to get too specific. She was honest, well, as honest as she could be considering how much denial she was in. Finally, she just threw her hands up in the air, and in a snippy tone, albeit a soft, snippy tone, she said, “Well, I just don’t know WHAT to do with Deandra! She is such a problem!”

Uh-oh, I realized we were going in the wrong direction with this. This was Deandra’s fault? This was Deandra’s problem? How was I supposed to respond to THAT?

I needed another kid in my house like I needed a hole in the head, but I took a deep breath and said, “Well, maybe Deandra can come over for the night and we’ll talk about this tomorrow and see what can be done. Would that be good? Would that work for you?” She breathed an audible sigh of relief. “That’s fine”, she said curtly. I knew she wasn’t mad at me for intervening. On the contrary, she was very happy. Someone was actually taking this problem off her weary hands.

Deandra came home with me and I made her a bed on the couch. It was getting late and I didn’t feel like any purpose would be served by staying up all night talking. I wasn’t sure I could handle the truth any better than the mom. I knew the truth would come out at some point but I didn’t want to face it. Morning came and went, we hadn’t really talked yet, but there was a tension in the air. This girl had been in my cabin for the whole week of camp and I had known her for at least six months at this point. Yet I didn’t really know her, did I? As we began to slowly ease our way into talking about the problems at home, it all kept coming back to the stepfather.

I was getting that sick feeling again. So, sue me for being sheltered, but I had never even heard of such a thing until after I was married and I watched the Phil Donahue show. Back then I just turned off the TV because the subject was so distressing….forgive me, Lord, so gross to me, that I didn’t want to hear about it. I knew there were verses about it in the Bible, verses condemning it, but I didn’t want to read those either. Those verses, the people on Donahue, the subject matter, weren’t any part of my life. I didn’t have to think about it as long as it was just a subject being discussed on television. And when it was discussed I could just tune it out and not listen. I never knew about the girl that lived next door to me growing up. I never knew why she was so screwed up all the time. I didn’t find out until she killed herself a few years ago on her 50th birthday. It was right there, living next door to me, but I never knew. Now it was up in my face, a girl I knew and cared about, a family in my town. There was no way of getting around it. No way of getting over it. No way of getting under it. I would just have to go through it.

Suddenly, in the second it takes to exhale a breath, it came out. The words just came tumbling out like red wine spilling on the rug. There it was. And like wine on the rug, there is no chance of ever cleaning it up. You can get some of it. Maybe make the rug look okay, again, but the stain is always there, just a little harder to see. You can’t buy a new rug. The rug is here to stay. You can’t get rid of the stain, even with continued washing, scrubbing, frantic shampooing. It never comes fully out. You can’t fix a stain like this. You can put a throw rug over it. That’s what most people do. Just throw a rug over the stain so that it doesn’t show anymore. It’s still there but we don’t have to look at it. We can pretend that it is not there and that the person who spilled the wine didn’t really spill it. But there is no getting rid of it. Her soul, the part of her that deals with life, people, her own self, has been changed. Forever.

Please don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mean to say that it would have been better for her not to have said anything. Just the opposite. Not saying anything only allows this thing to fester and get worse. Possibly be acted out in her life in some other fashion. Yet, I know that this is not one of those things that you can go to the doctor and just get a bandage for. It’s too big, it’s too pervasive. There is no surgery that will correct it. Counseling is good, counseling is very good, but like a soldier returning from war never forgets what he saw, what he did, what he experienced, this girl never would either. She was a youth, but her youth was gone. It had been stolen from her. By a man that she had grown to trust. By a mother who couldn’t deal. By a county that wouldn’t, or couldn’t act. By a society that didn’t want to know anymore than whether Hillary could handle Bill’s infidelity, and why wasn’t she just in the kitchen making cookies for him anyway.

There was no taking these words back. I knew too much now. Too much, now, to go on about my happy life without a care in the world. I asked her what she wanted to do about it. She just shrugged her shoulders. Similar to the response I had gotten from the mom the night before. Do you want me to call the county? Do you want to stay here for a little while? I knew she couldn’t go home. That much I KNEW. She grasped at the idea of staying at the house like a drowning man grabbing a pole. It came out that the county WAS, indeed, involved. They already had a caseworker? And this child had not been removed? How could this be? I was furious. I could hardly control my indignation. I told her that I would call them and find out what was going on.

In spite of the problems, I was still having fun and growing in the Lord. My ‘hearing’ that I mentioned in a former post was growing stronger. I was praying more, studying the Word more and spending more time just all out praising God. So were the kids.

My foster kids were enjoying all the hullabaloo and while not directly involved with the worship group or the youth, per se, enjoyed the attention lavished on them when kids came over.

And come over they did. As spring break proved there was no stopping this

My birthday was on a Saturday in early April. My husband asked me to stay home from youth group on the Friday before. I was pretty oblivious. I didn’t really know what was going on and he just said he wanted to spend the evening with me knowing that the next day would be consumed. The kids had planned a surprise party for me but I never knew. Friday afternoon I got a call from a girl in the next town asking if I would pick her up for the group. I told her I wasn’t going but that I would pick her up and she could find a way home. By the time we got to the community center my van was crammed with all these other kids that needed a ride that she didn’t tell me about on the phone.

My favorite saxophone player, the Kirk Cameron look-a-like, the one who together with his girlfriend followed me from swimming to roller skating to bowling, was sitting shotgun when I dropped them off. As they all piled out of the car, he just sat there.

“Have fun tonight, D.”, I said. (bet you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I really called him D!)

“Con, you’re sure you can’t come tonight?”

“No, I have to go home. Things to do.”

“It won’t be the same without you here”

“Thanks! I wish I could stay.”

“Can’t you ask your father to let you come out with us?”

WHAT? I thought he was kidding or that I had heard wrong. I turned so that I was fully facing him. He was looking out the front window but when I turned he looked at me. His face looked so young, so innocent. So...like a kid.

Slowly, deliberately, I said, “D, you KNOW that the man I live with IS NOT my father. He is my HUSBAND.”

His face shifted like he had just come out of a fog. “Oh yeah, yeah, I know, Con, I knew that. Just kiddin’ ya.

He smiled. I smiled. He got out of the car. I sat and wondered what that was all about.

What I realized was that I had become so much one of them that the line was blurred. Not that I had done anything morally or ethically wrong, but that we had entered this netherland where young and old, male and female, didn’t exist. The worship we had experienced, the presence of God that we had laid hold of, had broken down barriers. It reminded me of the way heaven was going to be. All of us there, with the Lord, no divisions, no generation gaps. They still called my husband Mr. C. I was never Mrs. C. I wasn’t Juniors Mom, or Sister Connie anymore either. I was Connie, Con, Conster. I was one of them. I had never been one of anything like that, even when I was younger. I was 25 years older than the oldest kids there and I had never forgotten that. But they did. I chuckled about it at the time. It would stick with me though. I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about that.

There was another evening I got a phone call. The kids were getting together at a nearby house to hang out. One of the kids called. They wanted me to come over. I told them that I couldn’t come that night, we were having a family night. They practically begged me, telling me that they were playing Jailhouse Break, some kind of tag game that involved hanging from trees or some such thing. They felt SURE that I would just LOVE that game and, again, ’it won’t be the same without you’.

What would make any teenager think for one minute that a forty something, overweight, klutzy, woman would be interested in playing a game called Jailhouse Break? God had challenged all generational gaps. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But I finally started to get a revelation why someone had made the remark, “She just wishes she was a teenager again”. It wasn’t that I WANTED to be a teenager again, heavens!, go back there? Forget it! But I WAS having fun, and I didn’t want it to end just because it was unusual for a middleaged woman to have a blast with a bunch of kids. I made a decision, right there and then, that I would never allow myself to forget who I was, how old I was, where I came from, and what my purpose was.

The kids mostly listened to Christian music. However, we had a segment of guys who listened to what they called “Hardcore Christian music”. They talked about it all the time and after worship was over on Saturdays would beg me to let them put it on. I didn’t really like much of it. It wasn’t bad, just not my style. There was a worship night where no girls showed up. There were about twenty boys. No girls. I never did find out what happened to them that night. Like I said, it would appear God was raising up the guys. One of them turned to me and asked,

“Where are all the girls?”

“Well, I don’t know! But....we got the Hardcore!”

They loved THAT! I had hit the spot. From that point on “Connie’s Worship” was never called that again. They were The Hardcore. Even when the girls were there, no matter who else showed up, they were forever thus, The Hardcore. Even now, when people in town talk about that time period, everyone knows what The Hardcore was. Who it was. What it meant.

Daughter no. 1 was graduating from college and we left for the weekend for the ceremonies. The kids had been told that there would be no worship that week but a couple of them wanted to know if they could come to the house when we got home around 3 on Sunday afternoon. I told them that would be okay. Two kids did not show up. Thirty kids showed up. We live on the corner as you enter our neighborhood, and before we even rounded the bend we saw kids everywhere, all over the yard, all over the driveway, all over the street. They were shooting hoops, playing soccer, and just walking up and down the sidewalk. One of the older boys was sitting on the front stoop reading the Sunday paper from our door. They actually let out a cheer when they saw us and swarmed the car. My husband had to wave them off so he could pull up the driveway. I don’t really remember the rest of the day. I assume we had dinner, I think we watched a movie. The kids were just happy to be all together.

As summer approached I was encouraging the kids to consider coming to camp. The youth pastor asked and he didn't have to beg this time. I was psyched and ready. Every week when I saw the kids I urged, coerced, and downright begged them to come. Many of them did. There was one girl, from a troubled home, who wanted to come but didn't have the money. I called the youth pastor and asked if the church could cover her. He said yes! Maybe there was hope for the two of us after all!

I figured that if I had had so much fun at camp, and was having so much fun with these kids, having both together in the same place was going to be awesome. It was. I had learned from the year before that the counselors liked to work with their kids to decorate their dorm or cabins to add more festivity to the week and to win recognition from the leaders. I had felt bad that I hadn’t known about that the year before but I was prepared now! This year I bought a long roll of banner paper and printed a Bible verse in large bubble letters along it. I had the kids help me fill in the letters with markers and I hung it encircling the whole outside of the cabin for all to see. I had prayed that I would receive the same cabin as the year before and I did.

Daughter no.2 returned as a counselor. I was given Senior camp again. Junior was there as an older camper and the three foster kids were in Junior camp. This year as we came into camp, did the mandatory staff meetings and slept that night waiting for the kids to come there was no frustration and no fear.

There was only the anticipation that my Hardcore kids were coming, and we were going to have a B-L-A-S-T! At sometime around the middle of the week, my voice already cracking from having too much fun, I was just overcome by the Spirit of the Lord. I stood in the middle of the campground and yelled at the top of my voice,

“I JUST LOVE THE PRESENCE OF GOD AT CAMP!”

Fifteen kids came running from all directions and yelled, “YEA, ME TOO!”

I was losing my friend. After the meeting with the Pastor and parents, I called her. I was strong until I heard her voice and then I just crumbled. I told her the whole story. Her response shocked me. She told me that I was wrong. That I WAS too involved with this boy. That I should mind my own business and stop letting these kids come over.

Apparently the mother of the boy, and maybe the father too, had been spreading rumors for a while. At least a few weeks.

I'm one of those people that everyone knows who I am because my husband is so visible in the local supermarket, and because I've always had so many and varied children that go to school, Sunday School, VBS, Scouts and the local nursery school. Inspite of my children being in all these things I, myself, was not overly involved. I moved to this town when I was 21 and I was 37 when I got my drivers license. While no one who knows me would call me quiet or retiring, my lifestyle to that point was definitely not out there.

Once the teenagers started coming over I became what I refer to as a pseudo-celebrity. People know what you look like, they've talked to you for all of sixty seconds in church, so they think they know you intimately, and they just LOVE to talk about you. I've been told that is jealousy, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what was so great about me that anyone should be jealous.

People are jealous of my insecurities? People are jealous of my poor self-image? People are jealous of the backbreaking work I do with children? The door is always open for YOU to do that too! People are jealous of my freedom in worship? Press into God through Christ for yourself and find the freedom with which He has set us free! I can do that with you, but I can't do that FOR you.

The gossip I was so upset about before I committed my life to the Lord did not seem to know any religious bounderies. Women called it the prayer chain. I called it the gossip chain. They used prayer time to offer requests, always offering more information than was needed for appropriate prayer. Some of it was opinion, not fact. Like I said, sometimes prayer meetings weren't much different than the coffee klatch I had left behind many years before.

One Sunday an unfamiliar woman came up to me in church. I had never seen her before and told her I wasn't sure who she was. She replied that I DIDN'T know her, but she sure KNEW me! Yeah?

She told me, "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! You're that woman that has all the kids coming over to your house every week. You're the unsubmissive home group leader!"

"Whaaaat did you say?"

I just stared at her. This tall, overbearing woman, smiling down at me. Was that a smile of condecension, compassion, or contempt? I couldn't tell. I don't think it was the two latter ones but whatever it was it left me feeling strangely uneasy. I didn't like her smile, I didn't like her comment, and I didn't like the familiarity that she showed, thinking that she knew all about me when it was all based on 'what someone else said' and 'what someone else thought'.

I put on my social face and kept my emotions and speech intentionally vague. It wasn't hard to resurrect it after all those years of training in the country club, boarding school and the dance class with the long A. Church became a dodge and miss event for me. When I wasn't dodging the overly familiar people who descended on me like a torpedoing wasp trying to sting me with their little snide remarks, I was trying to miss the spiritually politically correct and the increasing judgment that was being heaped on my head like dirt trying to bury me in a grave of my own uncertainty.

"Oh, well, yeah, okay, uh-huh, hmmm, yep."

I've always been a bit too trusting....and loyal. Like a dog. It has set me up for people to take advantage of me and I was becoming increasingly aware of my need to go deep in the Spirit to protect myself from the onslaught that was coming. I could feel it coming. I didn't know what to do about it but I knew I had to strengthen myself in the Lord. I saw the verse, "Position yourself, the Lord will fight this battle for you". Okay God, I'm trustin' in you. I don't need more faith, God. I need more of Your presence. I need You to be so real to me that I can feel You.

The hits kept coming. I felt like one of those Yogi Bear blow up things that have the sand in the bottom. You punch it down and it pops back up again. If you only knock it a little it comes back up fast. If you knock it all the way down it still comes back up but a little slower. I realized my need to slow down, stay more in touch with the Word and the Spirit. Not to overload myself. It was hard though. The phone kept ringing, the doorbell kept going off, kids moved in, and I kept getting called to meetings. I had never had this much contact with church leadership in my whole entire life.

Lest one thinks that I have gotten away from my initial premise of friends, and how hard it is to make and keep them, I return now to my friend. My adult buddy.

She was working at a dental clinic. I had worked at the store with my husband for four years, while still doing foster care, and then decided that I had to pick one or the other. Both were too much. The kids won out. They always do for me. We didn't see much of each other but we talked, I stopped over, we kept up on each other's news. I still called her my best friend.

As I got further and further involved with the teenagers, not only at my house, but at youth group on Friday nights, I began to sense an estrangment happening. I didn't know what precipitated it but I knew something was up. I asked, but never got a straight answer. In spite of our son's friendship going by the wayside, we were still friends through thick or thin. I knew she was struggling and was even on some medication for depression but something else was working here. She would call at times, struggling with one thing or an other. If I would share a problem or issue she was all ears but whenever I would start sharing happy things about my life she didn't want to hear it and even got a little snippy. Especially if I brought up the youth group. That seemed to really get her goat. I tried not to bring it up any more but I really wasn't sure why this was such a sore point. It was hard because it was such a huge part of my life at that time that I had to constantly be on guard that I didn't say anything about it. I found out later that her son felt isolated from the youth group, that he felt like no one wanted him there, and that he wasn't comfortable coming over to our house. He couldn't tell her what he had done four years before, so instead he told her that youth group and 'Connie's Worship' were cliques. I wasn't sure what had happened to make him so uncomfortable at youth group, because whatever it was, happened before I was a leader, because he wasn't involved at that point. I guess whatever goes around, comes around. She was holding this in, not sharing it with me right away and it was eating at our friendship. When the rumors and innuendos started she actually believed them. The person that knew me the best, outside of my family, and had known me for so many years, believed the lies, not me. The lies that I had an "untoward", as the Bible calls it, relationship with a boy in the youth group.

I was beginning to have real problems with the leadership of the church involving the group in my home. Problems that went beyond asking for the bus to transport kids to a school prayer meeting. The Youth Pastor was going to the Senior Pastor, who previously had taken a 'stand back and see' attitude and whose oldest son was actively involved with the group. There was this couple who was socially connected with the pastor. They kept coming in to his office and complaining about their son's relationship with me. At the time I couldn't figure out why they would have such a problem with me. It became apparent very soon.

I had met this 15 year old at the Friday night youth group but he was one of the reasons the Saturday night worship was succeeding. Over half the group was made up of boys which I found somewhat disconcerting at first, yet also interesting. It would appear that God was raising up the guys, and they seemed to be the most hungry for the Lord. The girls, on the other hand, seemed only to come to check out the guys. Isn't it usually the other way around?

This boy started calling me, once or twice a week, usually after school. Then it became three or four times a week. After a few months I could expect a call each day around two thirty, right after kids get home from school. He talked about school, friends, girls, video games, youth group, whatever was on his mind. He talked, I listened. He was and honor student, very intelligent, funny, in the math league and band. He seemed a little bit emotionally needy but his family was very well to do and he seemed okay, at first glance. His self-esteem was suffering but I couldn't figure out why. Then one day it came out. Don't even ask me, I don't remember, how we got on the topic of disciplining children. Obviously that is an issue for me but why we would discuss that I don't know. Yet we were. I made the statement that I was only spanked twice that I remember when I was growing up but there was one day, as a young teenager, that I remember my mother, in the face of some serious sassiness, I'm sure, slapped my face. There was silence on the other end.

"Just once?", he said?

"Yep, just once.", I replied wondering at the sudden change in tone.

"Wow, I've been slapped. Alot."

"You have?"

"Punched too."

"YOU HAVE?"

"Yeah, lot's of times. Hundreds."

I was stunned. My mouth went dry and I couldn't move off the step I was sitting on. I felt paralyzed. I just sat there, unable to speak, unable to move.

"Connie?"

"Wha...?"

"It's alright. It hasn't happened lately. My parents are good now, my dad got help....I just stay away from him when he gets mad now....don't worry....I'm bigger now, I'm even getting bigger than him now..."

I couldn't believe it. I was talking to a foster kid. After four months of talking on the phone, spending time at youth group, worship group, and even at his large, beautiful home at a party that his mom asked me to invite the kids to for his birthday, I realized, I WAS TALKING TO A FOSTER KID!

Suddenly I rose up out of the fog of disbelievability and my first reaction was anger. I'm sure I frightened him. My voice lifted from the soft tone I generally use on the phone and went into loud, indignant, righteous anger.

"You have been abused!" I said. "Your father PUNCHED you?"

"Nooooo, no, no, it wasn't like that!"

The more he tried to explain it away, the more I realized that if I listened to any more of it I was going to be in a dither. There are certain people in society that are called "mandated reporters". Teachers, pastors, nurses, doctors, etc. If those people know something and DON'T say anything to the county about it, they could be held culpable for it. If it's bad enough they can be jailed. What he was telling me, even as he was trying to defend it, was grounds for being taken into foster care. Obviously, at his age, and barring some serious injury, the county probably wouldn't have pressed that case too far, but the fact of the matter remained that he was a physically and mentally abused child. Apparently, according to him, the Senior Pastor, the one who played golf and did other social things with his father, knew about it.

Uh-oh.

And now I knew.

Double uh-oh.

The conversation came to a close. He told me he would call tomorrow. I said sure.

The rest of the night was a blur. All I could see in front of me was his face. Slapped. His father punching him. This supposedly upstanding, home group leading, socially connected father. I seethed. I ranted in my mind, not having anyone to confide this too. I wrote down everything I was thinking on a piece of paper and then burned it so that no one would see it. I prayed. I felt my face redden every time I thought of it. The images kept coming and I got no sleep.

The pieces fit now. The inconsistancies. No wonder he was so needy. No wonder the parents didn't like him calling, confiding, wanting to come over and hang out at the house. Their despisement of me even though they didn't know me and had never spent time with me. Everything became clear. Well, at least as clear as this muddy situation allowed.

In spite of his protestations all was not well at home. Soon after this daytime phone call the phone rang at 11:00pm. That had never happened. In my sleepy state I grabbed the reciever off the hook.

"yeaaaaaa-awwwwhn"

"Con...sniff.....Connie?"

My eyes popped open. I left our bedroom with my blanket and went to the living room.

"What's wrong? WHAT IS WRONG!"

I was trying to control the volume of my voice but the words were coming out stiff and strident.

I don't remember now what the issue was, but the outcome was that he didn't want to live anymore. That is all I can remember....he didn't want to live. I am a compassionate person by nature, but even if I wasn't, as a foster parent I am TRAINED not to turn my eyes, ears, heart away from a child that expresses these emotions.

He talked, again I listened. I was getting increasingly angry but I prayed silently and God gave me the calmness and lack of emotionality I needed.

He said, "Nobody loves me."

I said, "Oh, ****, lot's of people love you"

"Who?"

"Your friends love you, your sister loves you, your parents love you"

"No, they DON'T"

"Yes, they do. Your parents don't always know how to show it, but they do"

"You love me."

"Yes, I love you"

Silence. Sniffling.

"No one cares about me the way you do. No one would care if I wasn't here except for you."

"Yes, they do, yes, they would, they just don't know how to show it. People get busy..... they don't think. I'm just better at showing it."

Silent sniffling.

"I can't find God"

"I know, sometimes He's hard to find"

Silence.

I started to tremble. My eyes watered and my lip quivered. I couldn't help it. "If God is too hard to find right now, don't do this thing, if only just for me. Please don't hurt yourself. I would miss you. You're my friend. I care about you."

We talked a little bit more and then I made a fatal mistake. I told him that he was always welcome to stay at the house for a day or two, if he and his parents ever needed a break. He asks me to wait a minute and puts the phone down. At the moment I didn't know what had happened to him but I found out later. He went into his parents bedroom, woke them up, and asks if he can come over to our house for the night. All I heard was the click of the receiver.

My head was spinning. How was I supposed to go back to sleep NOW? The rest of the night was fitful and I told my husband the whole story the next morning. Good thing.

The alarm clock went off at 5:30am as usual. While he dressed I told him about the call. I told him about the click. He just shook his head. Poor kid.

The microwave said 7:30am. Of all the things I don't need to remember this is probably one of them but it is indelibly etched in my mind. At 7:30am, I got a phone call from the Senior Pastor. He didn't sound mad but he didn't sound happy either. He had NEVER called me before, at any hour, let alone an early one, so the red flags were up all over the place and my stomach was knotting up.

"Yes, Pastor."

"Connie, I heard you got a phone call last night."

"Yes"

"We need to have a meeting today."

Gee, usually when YOU want to have a meeting with THEM it takes WEEKS to get an appointment. Well, at least days. This HAD to happen today.

He explained that the parents had called him, probably at midnight, he didn't say, and that this had to be dealt with.

"Okay"

The parents, the Pastor, and another church leader that was probably just along as a 'witness' came to my house at 3pm. My husband was still working and I felt overpowered. Every one sat down and I offered coffee. No takers. Okay, another sign this is not a social call, huh? I barely knew any of these people. We had been in the church for eight years at that point and had never said more than 'hi' to the Pastor, and didn't know these parents except through my youth group work. None of these people really knew me or had ever been in my home.

The Pastor, a seemingly cordial, yet controlling man, started the session. I was told that I was not to call this boy, under any circumstances. I started to say that I didn't call him, he called me, but suddenly I was told that I was interuppting and to be quiet. IN MY OWN HOUSE! I could feel my cheeks getting red and I shut my mouth.

I was told that there were to be NO phone calls. That I was not to receive any calls from this boy and if he called to hang up. I told him that I didn't know if I could do that.

There was stunned silence.

Suddenly everyone was talking at once and I just sat there feeling like I was in the Twilight Zone. Where was my husband anyway? I can't believe this is happening! The parents alleged that I had marital problems with my husband. Where did this information come from? They actually made snide remarks alluding to me being interested in their son!

The Pastor listened to them and didn't tell them to be quiet. In MY house. I just kept praying in my head. God, I don't know what is going on here, but this is nuts, You have to help me, God, give me the right words, the right tone of voice, the right attitude.

As suddenly as everything flared up, everything stopped. There was silence in the room and you could have cut it with a knife. Everyone looked at me and I felt my body go numb. The Pastor spoke up and said, "Now, what is your side of this Connie?"

Whew! He actually wanted to hear what I had to say? Or was God just working. I felt like my voice box wouldn't work but I forced the words up anyway.

I looked straight at the parents and then back to the Pastor, "This boy is, without question, the most emotionally fragile child I have ever met.

I saw the parents, both of them, flush.

"He is bright, inquisitive, gifted, and well-mannered"

I saw the parents, both of them, look at each other and look humbled.

"He loves the Lord. He just needs someone to talk to sometimes. Someone who is interested in all he has to say, and he has alot to say. I care about your son. Not the way a youth leader would care about your son. The way a mother would care about your son."

I saw it. I saw the change with my very eyes. I can't explain it in words but the mother's face changed. She became soft, and nervous, and frail. Frail and fallable. Not the shrew she started off as.

The Pastor took over. He started dishing out the rules. He's good at that. Rule one was that the boy would not be allowed to call. Suddenly the mother interuppted and said that she wouldn't mind an occasional call. We made rules about calls. The Pastor made a rule about spending time togehter, even though the only time we spent was in the confines of the Friday and Saturday groups. There were a couple other rules that I can't remember. The mother kept interuppting and softening the rules. I could sense the Pastor becoming frustrated with her indecisiveness but he held it in.

The meeting was over. Everything seemed settled. Seemed is the operative word. The mother and father, in turn, gave me a hug, telling me how much they appreciated everything I had done for their son. For what a good youth leader I was. That Twilight Zone feeling came again. Everything was settled except my stomach. And my spirit.

Something wasn't right. Something felt very wrong. But the Pastor was smiling. He thought we had a successful solution. It would appear that way on the outside, wouldn't it. Inside I felt.....I don't know.....like a pawn in some huge game of chess. I couldn't go backwards, and I could only go one step ahead at a time. I couldn't see where I was going and it didn't feel good.

This whole thing was new for me. At first I was pretty self-conscious around the kids. Maybe they didn't notice but I just couldn't get over the fact that they loved hanging out with me, and not only that but doing things that I LIKED to do. I mean, I would have let them come over just to watch our big screen TV and eat popcorn. I would have entertained them just so Junior would have some friends. But they didn't want to watch TV and they didn't need a place to hang out. They wanted to do what I like to do, pray, worship, read the Bible. I had never met teenagers that wanted to do ANY of that, let alone with ME. I was used to being told, "You're so queer, Mom, just settle down" and now these kids were telling me how awesome and cool I was. Humph. I had never been "cool" in my whole life. It took me to be middleaged to join the club. It was wintertime when it started and every single one of them, without ever being told, took their shoes off before stepping in on my rug. Where did these kids learn these manners? Can I keep you guys?

Week after week, kids came over, new ones coming all the time. This was a true grass roots movement of the Holy Spirit. There was no advertisment. Even from the church. If truth be told the church wasn't all too happy about this whole thing. Yeah, some parents couldn't get over how interested their kids were in the Bible all of a sudden and how the loud music coming from their room was worship music rather than Pearl Jam but they still weren't too sure. The only advertisment was word of mouth from kid to kid.

While they would have been welcome, there were no real unbelievers in the group. Maybe a few skeptics, as in the "Connie's worship is a cult" rumor that went around the Christian school, of all places, but even they came around if they took the time to visit. These kids were from solid Christian families and knew the score. They came from all school backgrounds. Homeschool, Christian school, public school. The public school kids were, by far, the most hungry for the Lord. Maybe it's because they are on the front line with the heathens.

I felt from the Lord to make sure anyone who wasn't already baptised in the Holy Spirit and wanted it, should be prayed over. Prayer languages were spilling out all over the room. That was the key. Once the kids were filled up, the worship just exploded. The only music was CD's, mostly Winds of Worship from Vineyard, but not having live music did not matter. There was no need for "show". If they wanted to worship they did, if they didn't there was no pressure. My only rule was they have respect for the fact that the group was here to find the presence of the Lord. Week after week I reminded them that "Connie's worship" as it came to be known, was not a dating service. I told them that if they wanted to date, that was fine, just don't bring it into the group. As the presence of the Lord increased so did crying, groaning, prayer. Dinner went from 6-7 but the worship went from 7- whenever, sometimes not stopping before eleven.

Every Saturday night they would fill up the house, eat, gab, and then create a circle on the couches, chairs, floor, over in the corner by the door. I had a little pattern. I thought they would think it was corny but I didn't know any other way for myself to meet everyone and get a handle on who they were. I would tell them that one at a time we would say our name, the school we went to and answer my silly ice breaking question of the week. Some of my questions were deep and thought provoking. Others were dopey, like "Are you a Trekkie, a Star Warrior, or neither". I knew for sure there were a bunch of both, what I didn't count on was the psuedo fighting that would come out of it. Guys were wrestling with other guys over this very inane question. Kids were getting locked outside of the house in 25 degree weather! In their socks! Well, it was funny, and I had to control my own hysterics in order to bring the place to some kind of order. As for MY school, I always told them that I went to the 'school of the Holy Spirit', or 'Connie's school of hard knocks', whichever the case may be. The worship would start and I rarely followed the 'formula' they use at church with fast songs coming first, slower songs later. I kept the cases of the CD's across the piano in the order they were in the changer. I got to know my CD's so well that I used the remote and didn't even have to look at the cases. Once the apathy of the past week was furrowed with some songs of sanctification the rippin' praise could start and kids were jumpin'. We had one song that is off an obscure Vineyard CD called Holy Defiance. The title song became the theme song of the group and the guys, in particular, sang it with real defiance in their voice.

Through the month of January we met once a week. Until Superbowl weekend. Then they were over on Saturday night for worship and Sunday night for the game. It was nuts. Junior, who really was a Junior in high school, had never had so many friends. Some of his worst enemies were the three boys who lived next door. There were so many kids over here that they were streaming out the door, playing basketball in the driveway even in the cold air. The boys next door couldn't take their eyes off all the kids. There were at least fifteen girls. All kinds of girls. Junior has friends? You could just hear their minds whirling. Thirty kids showed up for the game. The table was loaded with pizza, snacks and pop. Kids were everywhere. After the game started things calmed down, well, except for the occasional roar from the family room. There were a few serious musicians in the group. They were also not football fans so that worked for me! The sports fans were downstairs. The saxophone, trombone, oboe, and guitar players were crowded around the piano up in the living room. They played worship, they played jazz, they played classical. The cream of the crop musicians at the public school at that time just happened to be Christians. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

After the night was over, I realized this thing had only just begun. Kids began calling. After school, in the evening, all weekend. February break became chaotic. Everyday I heard from this one boy and his girlfriend. They wanted to know where I was going to be that day. If I was taking the kids swimming at the HS pool they showed up, when I took them roller skating they showed up. When they found out I was taking them bowling one day they all showed up, over 20 of them and bowled with me. No one wanted to go home afterwards so I made two trips from the alley bringing home the ones without cars and gave them dinner. I emptied my freezer of Rosetto's ravioli, Italian bread and threw bags of salad on the table. I also took out from the freezer four pumpkin pies left over from Christmas. While I went to pick up the second pack of kids, some girls I had dropped off first made the whole meal and had everything set by the time I got back with the guys. After dinner, the guys, without saying a word, took towels from under the sink and started filling the dishwasher and washing the pots and pans. WHO ARE THESE KIDS? WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN ALL MY LIFE? Anybody that WANTS to cook and WANTS to do dishes, they can invade my kitchen ANYTIME!

After dinner we drove five seperate cars over to another kids house way out in the country and had a huge bonfire. I still have pictures from that. I should post one in my gallery. It had been one awesome day. I never had this much fun even when I was a teenager myself. The kids just grabbed hold of everything I held out and took it to another level.

The more they loved me, the more I felt free to let myself, my real self, out of the shell I had created around me. The more I let my crazy side out, the more they embraced me. I was invited to attend their early morning prayer meeting that they had coordinated at the High School. They asked me to come every week. I brought so many kids in my van that I would have gotten a ticket if a policeman had been checking at 6:45 in the morning. Soon I asked my husband if he could drive a second car of kids over for me.

Then it occured to me that maybe we could borrow the church van. It was an 18 seater and somewhat dilapidated but I knew that different people borrowed it for activities. I called the Associate Pastor. He said sure, but check with the Youth Pastor. Rats. I confess that I had been trying to circumvent the Youth Pastor. He didn't seem very hip on the whole "Connie's Worship" thing to start with, had never officially okayed it himself, and he and I never really hit it off very well anyway. I called him. I took a deep breath and in a cheery voice asked if I could borrow the church van on Wed. mornings to take kids to the school prayer meeting. I told him that the secretary had already told me that no one was using it that morning. There was silence for what seemed like forever. I thought I had lost the connection.

"Pastor?"

"Connie, we need to have a meeting about this."

RATS! This was exactly what I had expected! The frustration of the past four months just shot to the surface and I couldn't keep it in. With the most self-control I could muster I said,

"Pastor, this---is---a---yes---or---no---question. Can I use the bus or not?"

"Connie, you never asked me if you could be part of that prayer meeting. As a youth leader for this church, you are not supposed to be doing any other ministry unless you have my permission".

"What?"

"I've put up with your worship group, but we have to talk about that too."

My heart went in my stomach. I felt sick.

"Never mind, Pastor. I don't need the bus. We have three cars in the family right now. My husband is already driving a seperate load over, I'll just have my daughter drive a third car, don't worry about it."

"We're still going to have that meeting, Connie"

When I got off the phone I said, "OOOOOOOO, MYYYYYY GOD! And I was NOT taking the name of the Lord in vain.