Christina (my wife) and I took custody of a 17 year old girl that is a junior in high school back in October 2008 (she is now 18).  She was in a very bad situation and needed a family to love and care for her.  So we went through the court system and became her legal guardians.  She joined our family with our two other daughters Morgan (6), and Callie (4). 

Christina and I told her that if she was gonna live here she would live by our rules (which are not very strict) and she would become part of our family.  We told her we would treat her like our own daughter.  We gave her love, support, told her that we were proud of her, and just tried to build her up by giving her positive influence. 

About five months into her staying at our house we noticed a change in her.  Her actions became negative, our discussions about her behavior became more often, and even though we showered her with the care and affection every daughter needs her behavior became worse. 

About a month ago she was scheduled to fly and see her mom for a month.  The night before she left she did something so bad that it put my family (especially my two little girls) in a dangerous situation.  After I took care of this dangerous situation my wife and I talked with her for the next four hours about her life, her actions, her decisions, and what’s been going on recently.  We found out about a lot of bad stuff that was going down.

 
The next day when before Christina dropped her off at the airport I told her that she has 1 month to think about her actions and how she wants to live, and Christina and I has 1 month to decide if we are going to accept her back into our family, let alone into our house again.

During this past month Christina and I found out even more stuff that was going on and that was continuing to go on while she was away.  So that shows us that she still doesn’t care about her actions nor the harmful life that she is living.  So I informed her today that she will not living with us when she arrives back to Delaware, and that she can live with her dad now that he is back in town (which isn’t a great situation but she made the decision by her actions).

I think there are two main themes here (I may think of more as I am typing). 
The first one is SELF-RESPCT.  One thing that we have found out and that she has admitted is that she doesn’t have any self-respect.  If you don’t respect yourself or have any self-worth then you can’t have any meaningful goals, dreams, or aspirations.  Without self-respect you will never be successful.  Without self-respect you life will go into a downward spiral. 

Self-respect is vital to living a healthy lifestyle, making the right decisions, and learning to love yourself.  If you can’t love or accept who you are then of course you will walk around with a non-caring attitude and you will put yourself in every bad situation that you can possibly think of. 

People can not make you respect yourself.  That has to come deep from within you.  Christina and I saw the potential in this young girl.  She finished this year on the honor roll, getting sports awards, and was really in a good situation, but because she didn’t see what Christina and I saw (even though we gave her the positive comments and love and care that she needed) she has made several wrong decisions.

Her comment to me was that she was a mess up and will always be that way.  I tried several times to explain to her that it doesn’t have to be that way.  She can get out of the situation she is in and can be happy and have a good life.  I gave her the example of Christina coming from a family where everyone fights and no one get along.  Chrisitna made the decision one day that she is not going to live that way and took herself out of that situation because she wanted to be happy and have a good life…and she did.

I tried to explain to her (just like my tag line says) that Chrisitna and I have been feeding her POSITIVE INFORMATION these past several months, because she never ACTED on the information we gave her she never got POSTIVE RESULTS.  If you act on information from someone that has more experience than you, most of the time you are going to get positive results.  How’s the saying go…You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. 

Your life is what YOU make of it, and to be honest, life is too short to live a life of hating yourself and not caring about the world around you. Change is hard, it’s not easy, and it takes work, but if your are willing to put in the time and stick to your goals you will see small improvements there and there and eventually you will be out of the situation you were once in.

The second thing is that your actions affects others.  This girl we were taking care of didn’t think of that.  She was putting herself in a dangerous situation, which put my family in a dangerous situation, which put me in a dangerous situation because I had to quickly get the situation under control.  So because of her negative actions she will not be living in our house anymore.  So her actions have affected herself, her mom and dad because they now have to deal with her, me and Christina because of her betrayal, and my two little girls because now I have to find a way to explain to them why their “big sister” is not living with us anymore. 

What ever you do, positive or negative, affects people.  It doesn’t just affect yourself.  Things that you do, big things or little things, have an affect on the environment around you.  People notice when you do things big or small, and when they see what you do they will form an opinion, they will think about what you did, and they may respond positively or negatively to how you acted.

For example, an elderly person is having trouble carrying in their groceries from their car to their house.  He sees you watching him, he already has a negative opinion formed of the “younger generation” and you do nothing to help him.  This proves to him that their opinion was right.  Now if you go and show one act of kindness…one positive act their opinion may be changed because you showed you care.  You may not of thought what you did was a big deal, but it was an opinion changing action to that elderly person.

 
Your actions don’t just affect you!

So take away what you want from this post.  It’s just sad to see this happen.  I am disappointed in her actions, but I can say with a clear conscience that Christina and I did everything we could to help her out.  She just didn’t want the help.  Her negative actions are catching up to her and she is going to get hit hard soon.  I just feel bad for her when that day comes.  But like I said, she made her choice.

One thing’s for sure, this will not hinder Christina and I from helping people.  That is what we’re about!  We’re trying to make a positive impact on this world and we will do it one action at a time…and if you don’t want it we’ll move on to the next person.  But I hope you want it because no one deserves to live in many of the circumstances that are out there today.

I wish you all the best!  Please comment and retweet this if you can.