The eyes of a boy.

The first time I saw his picture, he was leaning his head against a court room wall, weeping. The other day I saw him again, from the pages of a newspaper, and this time I saw his eyes. How they haunt me. I can't stop thinking about them, about him. He is eighteen-years-old. He should be planning his future, enrolling into university, getting a part-time job, deciding whether to study business or science. Instead, he is in court, being tried for second-degree murder. His eyes. I cannot describe to you what I see there. Confusion. Fear. Unfathomable pain. Prison is only going to make him worse, ruin him forever.

I can't stand it sometimes. The older I get, the more I see how wretched our world really is. I feel like I could buckle under the weight of all the hurting people, the hurting kids. Who is going to tell them about the hope they can find in Jesus? How will this boy ever know that there is Someone who loves him?

I don't know why I felt compelled to write about this. It just got me thinking about so many things. About him. About pain and hope. About life and what it all means. Mostly I started thinking about my own kids, in this case my boys, especially. What can I do as a mom to ensure this never happens to them? I don't think, honestly, that there is anything I could ever do to stop my boys from rebelling. They are going to make their own choices and make their own mistakes and learn from them, hopefully.

I feel like a broken record saying this, but all I can do is teach them, point them to the Lord and pray for them. There are no guarantees in this life. The only thing that I can do as a mom is my very best, and then trust the Lord for their futures. They are in His hands and that is the very best place for them to be!