The reading from Jeremiah 31 touches my heart for all the parents whose children have been ensnared in the ugly web of addiction:  Rachel mourns for her children, she refuses to be consoled for her children– they are no more!  Thus says the Lord;  cease your cries of weeping, hold back your tears!  There is compensation for your labor–they shall return from the enemy’s land.  There is hope for your future–your children shall return to their own territory.

So many of our children are in the enemy’s land.  Not a land that we can draw or see on a map but a place where we cannot reach them; cannot save them;  actually, do not recognize them.  We can only have hope that they will return to their own territory, a place they know and are known; love and are loved;  and become who they are meant to be once more.

 

Amen and Amen

Be holy!