Life is full of hard choices. This year we had to make the hard choice of keeping our foreign exchange student for the entire school year or asking her to be reassigned to another family. It has been a long, hard year for many reasons, but it just seemed to catch up with all of us and the house had become a place of anger and tension. My son said it well "She just seems like a guest who has overstayed her welcome." But my oldest daughter who asked for this arrangement had become the meanest part of the equation.
We tried many different housing arrangements, had many conversations and asked a number of people for help, but in the end, we needed to make a decision. Life was not much fun for anyone including our student. When the decision was finally made, I was the one to help her pack everything and move her out. When she arrived that afternoon to move, I just hugged her in the driveway and we both cried about how sad we were that this house was no longer the best place for her to be. Thankfully another family in a different school stepped in to care for her, but it was one of the harder decisions we have made in a long time. My hope is that her time in America ends well and she feels safe and cared for and even has some fun before returning home.
But here is the take away lesson. Healthy kids will fight for the things they need, but they use immature weapons. Initially I was very disappointed in my kids for their growing coldness towards our student. There were days they were just down right mean. It led to many conversations and a few apologies. But now that the circumstances have changed and we all have a little distance, I can see it better than while we were in the moment. Joy is returning to our house and even tonight we played a game at dinner that was really enjoyable for all of us. But to my kids, something precious was being threatened; our family. To me, I see us as a strong family that has all this love to give hurting people. Our little girl was hurting in many ways, but to my kids, she was also stealing something they needed; my attention.
My oldest is graduating and going off to college in the fall. She has a summer job in CO and will leave the day after graduation. She needs this time to be about her, not someone else. I can see that now and I don't think it's very realistic for an 18 year old to be able to articulate that truth. Instead, she got mean because she felt like the thing she needed, my attention, was being stolen. Does that give her freedom or justify her actions? No. Should we go on sinning so that grace may abound? May it never be! But I get it now. I can take it as a compliment that my daughter needs me and we can talk about what was happening underneath the surface.
My heart still hurts for our student. I pray for her and am trusting God that we loved as well as could. It was not perfect, but little in this world is perfect. Jesus is bigger than our family and He uses everything to draw us to Himself so He can love us. This one hurt, but I will still consider it Another Homeschool Success Story!
