Selena's Story: Part Two

It is very emotionally taxing to be in the midst of spiritual warfare. We felt attacked and unappreciated. She would become enraged in the blink of an eye. We wouldn't even know what upset her. Sometimes during the rage, there would be a grin as if she knew exactly what she was doing while kicking the walls or punching objects. But the next day there would be no memory of the event. After many of these episodes we started to see the trend and God began to reveal himself in the midst of these attacks. Even today I can tell when the enemy is attacking and when she is just needing to be re-trained. God's many years of grace and mercy in my own life had come to my front door in the reflection of this little girl. He needed us to be His hands and feet so that she could see clearly the promises he had for her and she had non-the-less attached herself to us in a way that we weren't ready for. Selena had made up her mind though, she had chosen us to be her guiding stars, or was that God.

As we approached our first Christmas together we were still under attack. We tried to avoid triggering the trauma or a memory that would upset the balance of what was swirling around in her head. However the memories were stronger than we knew and eventually they all bubbled out again. During her tantrums, we noticed that our loyal dog Buddie was glued to her side, he would crawl up right beside her placing himself in harm's way. Eventually Selena would notice and start to calm down as she reached out to pet him. It was such a sweet act of God to send a little gentle spirit to her side as he was the only one she would respond to many times.

It soon became clear that Selena would need more assistance than we could give her. She was admitted to a behavioral health center the week of Christmas. While we were sad to send her off, we knew this was the right thing to do as getting her stable emotionally was our number one goal. We visited her twice a week which was all that was allowed. Were we the right parents for Selena? We spent months on our knees awaiting the answer.