As some of you may know, my 25-year-old son (a heroin addict) has been in jail for 6 months. He's mostly been housed in a county 5 hours from our home, but he's been transferred twice to our local jail to face charges incurred in our hometown. Yesterday was his court day for the local charges and we chose not to be in court. We didn't hear from him or his court-appointed lawyer all day so we assumed his case had been continued, as they often are. Well, at 11:45 PM, the phone rings. It' our son. He'd been transferred back to the county 5 hours away, and HE'S BEING RELEASED from that jail Also, he apparently took a plea in the local cases so he's on probation for 2 years, and he's out of both jails! He has no ID, no money, no coat (he was jailed in the summertime), and 30 miles away from the nearest bus station. What's worse, my husband and I were supposed to take a plane together this morning to attend a family wedding. So instead, my husband left home at 5:00 AM to go pick him up 5 hours away (they actually postponed his release until morning because my son had nowhere to go and nobody to pick him up). My husband was able to change his ticket for tomorrow (for a fee), but this means we'll have to leave my newly-released son by himself part of the weekend. And so it begins again...the drama, the unexpected, the changes-in-plan, the lunacy, and he's not even home yet!

We are simply unprepared for his return. We've talked about boundaries and conditions and limits, but we just didn't expect him to be released--like--NOW. I hope we're better equipped to handle what's coming and that we're able to avoid enabling him as we did before. Lord, grant us the serenity. Lord, grant him the courage. Lord, grant us peace in this life!