Consequences

Our youngest son graduated three weeks before five of his classmates were at a party that ran out of drugs.  The boys, already high, returned to town over a very busy, two lane mountain road to replenish the drugs.  Our neighbor, a highway patrolman, confirmed the report that the boys were doing between 110-115 miles per hour, passing everyone in their way.

Until they topped a hill and met a family in a station wagon coming the other direction.  All five boys died, one burned beyond recognition.  Two of them were younger and never knew the sense of accomplishment from a diploma.  The parents in the station wagon were also killed and the two children in the back seat will suffer dreadful health issues as long as they live.

Just two weeks ago, an 18 year old bought a car and the very next day, drove past our place doing 100 miles per hour (speed limit is 45). This road is also two lanes and very busy.  He struck a pickup backing out of the driveway and was killed.  The driver of the pickup is still hospitalized.

Tragic circumstances in both situations.  The perpetrators of the incidents all paid horrible consequences.  However, sometimes consequences are paid by the innocent.  Certainly that family who was struck head on were innocent of wrong doing, as was the driver of the pickup.

Drugs and alcohol can have consequences on other innocents, too.  I saw the consequences of the substance abuse combined with a sexually active lifestyle that is so prevalent today when I worked in the pro life ministry.  Poverty, disease, broken hearts, and families in chaos, to say nothing of the burden on responsible family members, society, and tax payers.

Now, I'm seeing it even more as I work with the boys on the ranch.  So many of them come from single parent families.  Many have parents in jail because of drugs.  One boy's mother died while he was a student here.  Drug overdose.

While it may seem like the boys at the ranch are just fine, they're not.  They only come to the ranch because they're having problems.  Many have fallen behind in their schoolwork.  Since the school is 100% faith based, almost all of the boys are living in poverty at home.  The only thing the family pays for is uniforms and that's to give the families an investment in their child's education.

Several of the boys are living with relatives because the parents are in jail.  Some of the boys don't even know who their father is.  Social maladjustment is rampant.  Many come to the school because public school has expelled them for fighting.  They need attention and plenty of it, but even with our student/teacher ratio, sometimes it's not enough.

The boys didn't ask for the problems they have. Inability to concentrate, inability to get along, no work ethic, poor neighborhoods that exacerbate the situation when they return home on week ends and vacations.  They're paying the consequences for the poor choices their parents made and continue to make.  How will they learn better skills to make good choices for themselves as adults?

And yet, society continues to glorify such behavior.  Movies, books, television seem to think "everyone" is doing it.  When I mentioned purity until marriage to one boy, he said, "Nobody thinks that way anymore."  He's the young man I'm proudest of in the 12 years I've worked here.  He has his head on straight about everything else but that. He is strongly opposed to abortion and says he'll never marry. So what happens when a girl tries to trap him?  Consequences.

My mother used to say when I would whine  that everyone was doing it, "Everyone's going off a bridge in Pittsburgh.  Are you going with them?"  At the time, my teenage mind was anything but happy with her response.  I knew the answer to my request was an unqualified no.  If I had been allowed to go to those parties where alcohol was rampant, would I have participated rather than suffering the ridicule that was bound to occur by refusing?  Would I have taken up smoking and ended up with diabetes as many in my family have?  Would I have done anything to keep a boyfriend that was leaving anyway?  I fail to see the glamour and glory in the consequences that movies, television, and books fail to mention.

As a great grandmother, now I can see the wisdom of my parent's sheltering me. Back then, the dangers of teen aged behavior was not nearly so costly as it is today.  It is my hope that their strict upbringing for me helped me in rearing my sons and it will have good consequences for their children and grandchildren. Praying that's the case.