Letters to Heartlight

The success stories at Heartlight are the reason we do what we do. Here are two letters we received from parents of some of our recent residents. Their words speak to the powerful changes that occur daily on our campus.

Dear Mark, Jan, and Staff,

So many times over the past year I’ve thought of writing to try and express my gratitude for all you’ve done for our son and for our family, but words always seem so inadequate. My husband and I were struck last night (Christmas Eve) at how much better our situation with our son is this year than last year - or even worse, the Christmas before when we’d just sent him to Heartlight. My husband’s commented, “Heartlight made this Christmas possible.” In other words, our son’s time at Heartlight has brought us to a healthy point in our relationship with him, so that we could enjoy Christmas together as a family.

We still shudder at how awful it was to send our boy away and how terrible the conflict within our family had become. I remember our first Parent Retreat and some of the things Mark said, which were not at all what I wanted to hear…“We may or may not be able to help your teen, but we can help you as parents.” (I didn’t feel like I was the one who needed help!) and “Kids who finish the program may or may not continue to do well, but kids who do not finish do not do well.” (I wanted to hear there was a definite “fix” for our problems).

After a year of ups and downs, and attending all the parent and family retreats, we did what we vowed we wouldn’t do - we withdrew our son from Heartlight. It certainly wasn’t because of any disappointment with the program. It was an acknowledgement on our part that the staff and program had done as much as was possible for our family at that point. Though he was unwilling to admit it, our son had been greatly helped. He had a full year of wise input from a host of people other than his parents. He interacted with many other similarly- struggling teens, and learned to see the consequences of wise and foolish choices. He had a year of being cut off from trashy music, movies and TV. He did the bulk of his high school work while at Heartlight and we doubt he would have graduated if he’d stayed home. He did real labor for the first time in his life. He lived in a situation that required more discipline and cooperation than what we managed to command in our home during his teen years.

Nevertheless, our son remains stubborn and relatively foolish, and determined to learn many of life’s lessons “the hard way.” But true to Mark’s words, great benefits of our son’s year at Heartlight have accrued to the rest of the family. Lee suffered anxiety and depression and serious insomnia before our son’s move to Heartlight. I felt angry and disappointed that I didn’t have the kind of family life I’d devoted myself to creating. We had serious marital conflicts and spent time in counseling. Both of us struggled a lot in our faith. We wanted so much to have a home where God was honored, and we couldn’t understand why God was allowing such suffering and failure in our lives, and why our constant pleading for wisdom seemed to go unanswered. We shunned friendships because it was too painful and embarrassing to get into conversations with parents of other (more normal) teenagers. But, we were helped so much by interacting with other parents at Heartlight. God healed a lot of our pain through the weekends we spent there. Gradually, I learned to accept and appreciate the reality of who our son is, instead of continuing to be disappointed and angry. I’m still learning and I still struggle, but I hate to think what our outcome as a family might have been if not for your help.

Fast forward a year from our son’s return from Heartlight…he has graduated from high school and is living in a nearby apartment. He’s passed all of his drug tests, began community college classes, and hasn’t been arrested or wrecked his car. He has good friends (that we like) and he’s pleasant and reasonably polite. He recently got a job. He has breakfast with his dad once a week and sometimes they go to concerts together. He joins us for Sunday evening treats and occasional meals. He stops by every few days or so. He’s playing on a semi-pro indoor soccer team and we have a lot of fun watching him play. He brought gifts he prepared himself for each family member to our Christmas celebration and really enjoyed giving them to us. We are deeply grateful to all of you for loving and serving our family in the name of Jesus. Please let us know if there are any ways that we can help you minister to hurting teens and parents. With thanks and prayers,

The Lancasters

One of our current staff girls knows a father whose daughter was at Heartlight a few years ago. He wrote Janice this letter following his daughter’s recent wedding

Dear Janice,

I’m glad you’re on staff at Heartlight. I wanted to relate to you a narrative about our daughter Grace and the story of her past few years.

After Grace left Heartlight, she returned to school. For six months, things were fine. Then she found the wrong crowd, again, got into trouble, and this time it involved the police. She spent time in juvenile detention and one month in county jail. At 18, she bought a one-way ticket to Dallas and lived there, finally hitting bottom. She returned home a mess. But, she had found a good relationship with a young man and (praise God) he is a really nice guy from a solid family. We met him in August and they got engaged on the top of the Sears Tower (he’s romantic). We celebrated their wedding this past Saturday.

When you have these girls at Heartlight, they are at their worst. The parents have reached the end of their ropes and are out of options. I’m sure sometimes they drop their girl off and race off thinking, “enough is enough - you take her.” Then they recover and reinvest. The probation officer for our daughter is now a great friend of the family. She once told us something important: We gave our daughter an important legacy since her adoption - she knows what normal is. She knows that there is indeed right and wrong, that life is not chaos and survival. And there are consequences. You live with a bad guy for a year and the sex/alcohol/marijuana/ craziness is no way to live. So, when our girl got in trouble she could look at the situation and say to herself, “Life doesn’t have to work this way. I’m making bad choices.” That process of thinking is HUGE for these kids.

If you ask Grace today, she’d say Heartlight saved her life. She will literally use that sentence, complete with its hyperbole. But, while she was there, you bet she was a little pain in the b*** - smart, cocky, mouthy, reactive, angry, dishonest. When it was all over, Heartlight contributed to the foundation we had been trying to build since we adopted her at age four. Sometimes our contributions do not work. And in that case, it is the street or prison for them. But, sometimes, our contributions are huge. But we cannot see the fruit of it until far later. You cannot even compare our daughter today to two years ago. Poised, happy, compliant (for the most part), honest (with lapses), but on a good path.

What you don’t see, Janice, is that when you put a girl in orange for cussing you out or spitting or stealing, you are reinforcing values imbedded deep in her soul which she is too proud to admit are there. And since you are “young and cool” and not a parent, you’re getting to her more than her parents will and more than she can admit. Have you even been to a cathedral Janice? I sometimes look at the bottom of the decorative pillars and think that a lone carver started there, doing his work but never getting to see the completed cathedral. It took many hands and many years. Nevertheless the workmanship in the column shows his pride and investment, even though he only carved a handful of stones. If we give up believing in the cathedral, the stonework is pointless. But bit by bit, each contribution will make something beautiful. And that is what we saw Saturday night.

You’re much like a stone carver, Janice. Sometimes it’s a thankless job. But every now and then you’ll get a little glimpse that this could be a cathedral you’re working on. That something worthwhile may come of it. Then you’ll know your purpose and reason for perseverance.

Gary B.