Bittersweet Goodbye

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This morning we woke up, and Mike was gone.  We had reminded him quite a few times that March 1st would be the last day that we could have him stay with us (for a few reasons which I won't get into here).  What I didn't expect was that we would wake up and he would have already left, without a goodbye.  But I did receive this text at 9:30 this morning:

"Ill c u when i c u ummk bi u guys and thank u"


Well, that's pretty much as good as it gets :)  Last night I had planned a farewell dinner for him.  I made all of his favorite foods (that he had divulged to me during his stay here): steak, stuffed bell peppers and baked potatoes.  We invited another family to come, who has also been helping him out, and we all gathered together at 5:00.  But Mike was not here.  We waited, and texted him, and he said he was in Santa Monica and his friend was having car trouble.  At 7:30pm he finally arrived, with no real explanation, and only ate a few bites of cold steak.  I was pretty disappointed.

After the dinner, the three of us adults sat down with him to talk with him one last time about his life and where we feel God is leading him next.  He didn't want to hear it.  He is struggling. He wants to do things his way and take care of himself.  We told him that he was choosing to be homeless; he does have other, really good options, but was choosing to say no to all of them. We told him that God has a major plan for his life, and it is obvious what direction God wants him to go in.  But we also reminded him that God will not force him to do it.  The conversation was hard.  It was heart-wrenching.  It was difficult for all of us.  Mike was not happy with what we were telling him.  We spoke to him for an hour, and he wouldn't look at us or answer our questions.  After it was over, he packed all of his stuff in a hurry and went to bed.

So, I shouldn't have been surprised when he got up and left early this morning.  But I was.  I was sad.  I didn't do any of this for a "thank you" or a pat on the back, and God really put my motives in check last night when Mike didn't show up for the grand dinner I prepared.  Yet I know God wanted him to be here for these past 5 weeks, and now it is time to let him go and let God take over and take care of him.  I am worried about him tonight.  I don't know if he has a place to stay. But we did the best that we could to prepare him to go, and took care of him the best we knew how.  Now it's up to him, and we hope that he chooses God's plan for his life instead of his own.

If you think about it, please pray for Mike.  Pray that God would continue to get a hold of his heart and lead him out to his family's home where they will love on him and take care of him.

What I will miss:
-our long conversations about what God is doing in his life
-his funny comments where he tried to be an expert on various areas
-him keeping the boys entertained and teaching them to say "I'm the boss" with a funny voice all day long
-him doing skateboard tricks and then me having to take care of him since he kept getting hurt
-having an extra person in our house which made me keep it cleaner, put myself together earlier in the morning, and make dinner faithfully 6-7 nights a week!

What I look forward to now:
-being able to walk around the house without a bra on in the mornings again (Whew! It was a pain having to strap that thing on first thing in the morning all the time!)
-being able to keep the bathroom door open when I pee
-being able to work in my office again
-having more milk in the fridge

All joking aside, we will really miss him and would do it all over again!  We hope he can continue to be a part of our family, too.

(This looks like a creepy dead body, but it is actually him showing us how he could fit in a suitcase yesterday) :)

We will miss you, Mike!