Well, my daughter Jenny told me that if I “ever want to see her again” I was to take down my posts. I did, but they’re going back up. Since she won’t have much contact with the family anyway, it isn’t a threat. All contact is forced unless she wants something. Even when I‘ve taken her out to eat (after a lot of prodding) she won’t talk about anything of substance and avoids looking at me. One day, her dad was having chest pains and she wouldn’t even come see him. I grieve for her because she is so awful, but I’m also angry and frustrated because it’s so unnecessary.

I used to talk about her intelligence and creativity, but all she’s done for the last few years is follow exactly what other people do so she can be a cookie-cutter version of other people.
Take for instance her recent silly online ordination. That was to copy off a younger kid that she claims she can’t stand.

She seems to hate everyone who knows some of the rotten things she’s done. She says she hates her older brother and sister. Why? Because they’ve told her she’s stupid for doing the things she’s doing. I don’t understand that, though. I mean, she goes to the trouble to do these things, so I don’t know why it’s so horrible when we find out. She hates living with us, but perked up when I mentioned I was looking at an international assignment. She said she’d quit her job and move overseas with us. (This is the girl who would rather do anything than live with us now. I shudder to think how she’d act in a foreign county with nothing to offer except possibly playing the roles of harlot and drinking buddy, especially if we end up somewhere that English isn’t spoken much. The last thing I’d do is give her a new platform to use us and then disappear when she’s made enough contacts to leave.)

So what has she done? Well, she’s been caught drunk and smoking pot with Austin SCHNEIDER in Pendleton County, she started wearing makeup, got a nose ring, earrings, and a naval ring which make her look almost as trashy as her hair, and countenance. I suspect she has some tattoos. (Who is she trying to impress?) There’s not too much more she can do to her body. She claims she isn’t a fornicator. I don’t know why she wouldn’t be since she just wants to do everything else she thinks someone might be doing. She doesn’t want to miss out!

Last Sunday, she didn’t want to face me, so she had one of her sisters call me on her phone from the driveway. My husband came in and said she scowled and played on her phone all through church. I’ve had about enough of her disrespect. She told me that she thinks it’s “hilarious” that I think of scenarios she is involved in.
What especially grieves me is that I don’t know when I’ve seen someone with such potential throw it away with both hands as quickly as possible.

Did I mention that she fast-talked her way out of $450 in fines at UC? Well, for the moment, that is. She paid $35, but not the rest. She called her brother one day to ask if the fines were his because the car she drives is in her Dad’s name, and when she found the car impounded, she lied to the officer and called her brother, pretending not to know anything about the fines so she could get out of it. (Her Dad and older brother share the same name, so she called her brother instead of her Dad.)

Well, when a kid won’t even show up at the dentist to have her teeth cleaned for free, what can I expect? Jenny insisted for months that she wanted her “own insurance,” but got angry and defensive when I confronted her about her drunkenness and drug use (why on earth would we risk running up everybody else’s insurance due to her irresponsibility?). She said she doesn’t understand why she can’t just be on our policy and pay what she used to pay. Welcome to adulthood, where your parents love you and have the means to help you but aren’t going to be your enablers.

She is living a lot like Brother Andrew, author of God’s Smuggler. He did everything he could think of to do, including wearing a yellow hat to stand out during battle. He got shot of course, and continued throwing his life away until God arrested him in his sins and made him a new creation.

Jenny told the kids that I want to turn her into a clone of myself. Hardly. She has a lot more potential than I ever did, although that is dwindling pretty fast. It kills me that she is so absolutely useless outside of her job (which she may end up losing if she can’t get there on time and won’t stop her silly games such as putting things in people’s cars—it’s a good way to get yourself fired).

What do I want for her? I want her to make a difference for the better. I want her to live out her days with godly convictions that she would die for, and to be worthy of the love of a man who loves her, and would give his life to protect her and any children in their home. I want her to stop resisting the love of her family and trying to replace it with people who couldn’t care less if she dropped off the face of the earth.

Instead, she runs and goes. Where she goes she doesn’t care as long as it’s somewhere new or different. We know that sooner or later we will likely be picking up the pieces. When I consider her many trips to UC, I can’t help thinking of a doctor in the area who said 20 years ago that more than 50% of his patients were students there who came to him for treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. He was just one doctor treating kids who did something about their symptoms. (Many ignore symptoms or are asymptomatic.) I hate to think of campus life now. A few years ago, I was studying at their law library, and when I made my way back to the car, three male students were behind me, fantasizing about sex with some girl they knew. I was so sorry to learn that she’s been over there repeatedly. Everything she’s done to herself shows that she is willing to be a target of that kind of attention.

I hate to think of the awful life she will have, and create for her children. And then to spend the rest of her life in Hell. But there she goes, as an ox to the slaughter. “The fool rageth and is confident.”

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.