Forgive Everyone Everything

We have recently experienced a very traumatic event on our farm.  Let me back track just a bit.  We live in the middle of nowhere.  A beautiful area in the middle of Amish country.  Scattered about there are non-Amish as well.  Obviously, because we are not Amish (well, almost but we will save that for another post!).   Anyway, we love being out in the country away from noise (except the noise which comes from our family of 10!), traffic, crime, and lots of neighbors with rowdy unsupervised children that in the city always wanted to flock to our house.  Even though we live in a very secluded area there is a boy.  A boy that lives a bit away but loves to come over.  He has 4 grown siblings and was a foster child turned adopted son of his family.  From what we know he had a very bad beginning and was in and out of several foster homes.  That breaks my heart.  It really does.  So when we moved to this area 15 months ago he was beyond thrilled to have "friends" down the road.  We are weary about having children over that are not visiting with their parents.  So against our usual rules we decided to give this boy a chance and thought that we might have a chance to witness to him as well.  Time after time there were problems with this boy.  Throwing rocks and breaking barn windows, spitting at our children, speaking foul language in front of our children that they had never heard before, pulling one of our older daughters down to the ground by her hair, hiding in our barn without permission to be in there and throwing rocks at Sam while he was riding his bike and it knocked him over.  This boy is angry.  Angry at the world, maybe angry at God, I'm not really sure.  But I am sure he is troubled and angry.  More than once my husband went to the boys father and explained the situation.  His father understood and agreed that they too have had many problems dealing with anger and even been to doctors and used medication to treat it.  Mike said that the boy was not allowed to come over anymore unless his Dad was present.  Problem solved, right??  Not quite.  About two months ago all of a sudden we have the boy here again.  And part of me does feel sorry for this child but I also have a God given duty to put my own children first.  So as he would be here I would try to watch out the window or be outside with the children as much as I could.  Things seemed to be better and the boy was behaving.  We wanted to teach our children that we always give 2nd chances however this past Saturday my husband took our 2 oldest boys to Illinois to visit family and I took our second oldest daughter out for a special occasion.  We went to town and had supper at Applebee's.  Hannah stayed at home and watched the 4 youngest.  We were only gone for about 2 hours.  As we got home just after 8pm it was pitch dark.  Because the older boys were gone, Emma and I were going out to do the evening chores.  We grabbed the lantern and headed out to the chicken coops.  As we were locking up the coops I noticed the boy riding his bike really fast around our chicken run.  I called out to him and said, "What are you doing out here?"  He replied, "I have to get something out of our boat garage."  (His Dad stores a boat in a garage behind our barn.)  I didn't buy it for a minute.  I said to Emma, "I don't trust that boy at all!"  We went on with our work and went over to our barn to feed the other animals.  We opened the big barn door and could not find our 3 eight week old kittens that would normally be playing and frolicking around in the straw.  We were stumped.  I looked down and saw all 3 kittens, who we adore, in a small wooden box on the floor sopping wet and shaking.  Emma and I were in total shock!  The barn itself was very dry and there was no possible way that they got into water themselves.  Two of the kittens were still alive but little Rosie (Hannah's kitten) was already gone.  We did not have time to cry or grieve.  We knew that if the two remaining kittens, Chewy and Coco, had any chance to survive we had to act immediately.  We scooped them up and ran them into the house.  They were freezing cold.  As we entered the house,  Hannah greeted us at the door.  We had to tell her what we had just found in the barn.  She as well as the twins and Gus we crying and in shock as well.  They all were part of these kittens lives since they were born on our farm and we were all very attached to them.  We interacted with them on a daily basis and loved them very much.  We carefully gave them warm baths and towell dried them.  I knew without a doubt that the boy had done this.  I had to call Mike as he was driving home.  I explained the situation and he was rightfully upset.  He too knew who was responsible for this!  If Mike had been home he would have gone himself but still being over an hour from home and knowing that this was something that had to be dealt with immediately we decided that I would go over to the boys house and speak to his Dad.  When  I got there his Dad answered the door and I asked him if the boy was home.  He said he was upstairs doing homework but that he had been in and out of the house several times that evening.  I asked him if he had asked his son to come and get something from the boat garage.  He looked confused and said, "No".  I then explained the story trying unsuccessfully to hold back tears and told him that I did not have actual proof but there was no other explanation for what had happened.  His Dad agreed with me and said that he thought that it was the boy as well and that he would ask him about it.  Mike soon returned and we went out to the barn to look at the situation .  Mike immediately noticed that the wheelbarrow right outside the barn door was full of recent rain water and straw.  The kittens were not only wet but had straw on them too.  The pieces of the puzzle were fitting together.  We now understood how the boy did what he did.  Why someone would try and drown helpless, defenseless, animals is beyond my understanding.  When we came in it was late.  We talked with the children a lot about what happened and Mike got down on his knees and prayed for the boy and his parents.  He also prayed that God would protect our family and animals from harm and that God would help us forgive the boy.  It was close to midnight by this time and knew that we would have to wait until Sunday to talk to the boys Dad again.  What happened was scary to us.  We felt scared for our animals and for our family.  NOT a good feeling to have!  Children that start inflicting pain to animals many times eventually hurt people too.  The following day we knew that we had to meet with the boy and his Dad.  Sunday afternoon we were surprised to see the boy snooping around and watching our family from a short distance away.  Who does this boy think he is??  Mike had every intention to wait and confront the boy when his dad was present but this was too much!  Mike marched right over to where the boy was hiding and said in a very firm voice, "What are you doing over here sneaking around?"  The boy was silent.  Mike then said, "I know you were in my barn last night and I know what you did!"  The boy replied, "I'll buy you a new cat."  He admitted it!  We were surprised that he didn't try to lie.  Of course we don't want a new cat!  Mike told him that he would be sitting down with him and his dad very soon.  Sunday evening rolled around and his Dad called Mike back and invited us to come and meet with them.  I was wanting answers and I was so hurt that this boy had done this to our family.  There we sat in their living room.  The 5 of us.  Mike, myself, the boy, his Mom and his Dad.  Awkward.  Quiet.  Surreal.  Mike did most of the talking.  The boy looked empty.  It was sad.  Very sad.  Mike told him that because Jesus Christ has first forgiven us for our sins that we forgive him for what he did to us and our kittens.  And then Mike asked the boy if he believed that Jesus died on the cross for his sins?  The boy nodded.  Mike continued to speak the gospel of Christ.  That part was amazing and I don't know if I could have done that.  Mike was amazing.  God was using Mike in a great way.  We also wanted to know why he would do this.  He shrugged his shoulders.  The boy said that one day when he was over one of the kittens scratched him and it made him mad!  This was his way of getting even with them??  We did tell him and his parents that we were considering getting the police involved.  The boy committed 2 crimes; breaking and entering and he killed one of our pets.  Mike decided that we would deal directly with his parents at this point.  Mike was VERY clear that the boy is to be NOWHERE in sight and if he does come on our property again the police will be called - no questions asked.  As we were getting ready to leave Mike told the boy and his parents that we will continue to pray for all of them.  The boys Dad said, Yes, please do."  Anger is easy.  It comes naturally in our humanness.  Forgiveness is hard.  It feels like the last thing we should do.  But it is freeing and Christ like.  We forgive the boy because Christ forgave us.