I have debated about whether to post anything about what is going on with our family or not - but decided that most of the time I only post the sunshine, smiley, happy stuff that is going on in our lives, and of course, that is not ALL that goes on around here. I have appreciated reading my cousins blogs when they post the side of them that is Human - not the super mom stuff all the time, the down to earth, life has it's trials, sort of thing. So, I decided to post this about Steelhead.
We were having a fun spring break - nothing earth shattering was going on, no trips to Disneyland, we hadn't gone to the movies or done anything super fun like that, we were just hanging around the house, having fun. Tuesday afternoon Steelhead decided to run away. There were no warnings, he didn't say anything, just took an orange off the counter and left. I didn't see him leave, we noticed he was gone a few minutes later when I asked Porcupine to have Steelhead build a fire because it was starting to get chilly in the house. Porcupine couldn't find him. He and Monkey looked all over outside and still couldn't find him. Then they noticed that the bike was missing. I didn't worry too much for a couple of hours. Then I started calling friends in the area to see if he had gone over there. No one had seen him. I called Hunter at work, and he too, wasn't that worried yet. Some of the critters and I started driving around looking for him - we ended up at our Bishop's house, and they too started looking for him. They made a few calls, and pretty soon there were a bunch of us looking.
Around 7:00 I talked to my neighbor, who is a detective for the County - he thought that the cold and the dark would bring him home. He said given what Steelhead is going through right now - Custody Battle (we are trying to get custody of the 3 kids), they are moving back to where they used to live this weekend, and just being a 14-year-old, we should give him some space and let him go for a ride. Well, it turned out to be more than just a ride. Hunter came home from work early - he was supposed to do a very long well test, but they shut the test down so he could go look for Steelhead. We contacted the police and filed a runaway report. Our Bishop and his wife felt like they should go to town and look near the ponds - thought maybe Steelhead went fishing there. On their way, Bishop's wife noticed a reflector off the side of the road - kind of down a hill. They stopped, and found our bike. Hunter went and identified it with the cops, then continued looking for Steelhead until late into the night. Of course we called Steelheads mom, and she came over to our house - she seemed pretty at ease, which was curious to me. She played with Yak and Lemur, and talked to Porcupine and Penguin. She seemed too calm to me; I would have been freaking out by this point!!
Hunter came home at 1:30 a.m. We decided that Steelhead was probably sleeping somewhere, and it was so dark, we couldn't look much anyway. We finally got to bed around 2:30 - actually feeling pretty peaceful about the whole thing. Of course we had been praying, and we just felt like everything was going to turn out okay. At 5:30 Steelhead's mom called to see if we had heard anything. Nope. She said she had slept at a friends house in town. At 7:00 she called again from the City, and said she found Steelhead asleep on the floor of the house she was moving out of. She was going to let him sleep, and then call us when he woke up.
At 8:00 a.m., Grandma Linda called and said she felt like she should call me to see if I needed anything. I did. She came over, arriving at the same time our Bishop showed up. She went downstairs with the children while our Biship counseled with us. He taught us many gospel principles that morning and left us with a very peacful heart, that the Lord is in control and we need to let His will be done.
We took the kids over to the Bishop's house around 11:00, where they played the rest of the day while we went to talk to Steelhead. He barely acknowledged us when we went in the house. It looked like he had been crying. Hunter tried to talk to him for about 15 minutes, and he would hardly respond to him. His mom said that he wasn't going with us and that he was staying with her. Hunter called the police to see if they could help us. Basically they told us that Steelhead is big enough to decide, and that they can't MAKE him go with us. If they did, he would probably just run away again. Steelhead told the police that he didn't want to go to our house anymore. He said he doesn't like it here, he doesn't get along with his dad, and that he would rather sit in a jail cell than be at our house... ouch! He did come out and talk to us, but said very little. He would give us no reason as to why he didn't want to come or be with us beyond, "I just don't want to be there." He gave no reason as to why he ran away. He just turned around and walked into the house, and we had to leave him and drive away.
It was a very emotional day. We are not really sure what is going on with Steelhead. We feel like something is happening, and we are just letting the Lord take care of it. Of course Steelhead has his freeagency, and he is making choices that are going to have consequences, but the Lord also knows all things, and we are trusting in Him. We don't know when Steelhead will come back to us, but we let him know that we love him and that he is always welcome in our home and that no matter when he decides to come back, we will be happy and welcome him with open arms.
SO: If you could, would you please pray for us and for Steelhead? We know that the power of prayer is awesome. We want Steelhead to know that we love him, and more importantly, that Heavenly Father loves him. We pray Steelhead will feel the influence of the Holy Ghost and that his heart will soften and that he will want to come home to us
Our bed of roses has both petals and thorns. We are trying to pick out the thorns and enjoy the sweet fragrance of the petals. General Conference this weekend was AWESOME and gave us great comfort and peace. It is an awesome experience to feel peace and know that God is in control, and an even more awesome experience when things don't turn out the way you want them to, and you still feel that peace. All is well, all is well.
