Special Guest: Turning Your Mess into a Message: Part 1

I was first introduced to Christy McCranie at a speaking engagement in Roswell, GA. She blew the cover off the ‘I-have-to-have-it-all-together-mom-façade’ which overwhelms and intimidates so many moms and leaves many of us running away from each other, wondering, ‘why don’t I have my stuff together like she does'? Christy’s story comes from a place of complete honesty. It’s a worst-case scenario, one in which she could have hidden in the corner, shuddering in shame, scorned by other moms and the community. Instead, she chose to step up and embrace where God had placed her and her family, despite the consequences of her son's fateful choice.

This is Part One of her family's very personal story. Please join me in thanking Christy for being brave and bold enough to share her situation via this forum. She inspires me as a woman and friend, but even more, as a parent. There is power in our stories. Thank you, Christy, for not hiding in shame but sharing your Mess and turning it into such a resonating Message! Here’s Christy.

I’m a good mom just like you.

I am available ... even as a mom of five.

I listen.

I help with homework.

I even homeschool several of my children.

We have family dinners …

Filters on the internet …

Phones plugged into my room at night.

We limit screens, gaming, and sugar intake.

I don’t yell a lot.

My husband and I are sober.

We’re thoughtful about our parenting.

So, this situation is a parent’s worst nightmare, right?

You can ‘do it right’ as a parent, and still, your child can make wrong decisions.

In 2015, just two weeks into the new school year, my oldest son, a Junior at a private Christian high school, along with four of his friends, made plans to take LSD on a Friday night after a high school football game. To the credit of this well-respected school, drug use is not typical for students attending this school, nor is the behavior exhibited by these boys on that night.

The group of five boys had developed an intricate plan -- down to securing a friend who agreed to be their ‘babysitter’ which, apparently is somewhat like hiring an Uber Driver in that the ‘babysitter’ agrees to remain sober and transports the boys after they are high. My son, along with his group of four friends had even planned a ‘safe’ place to hang out while they were tripping. But, as is often the case when it comes to drugs, things didn’t go as planned. After taking the LSD, the boys actually never made it to their ‘safe’ location. Which is not surprising. Let’s face it, any plans that begin with, “Let’s take some LSD!” are destined to fail -- right?

Beyond the bad choice of deciding to use drugs in the first place, there were two problems with the actual execution of their plan: First, they didn’t wait until they got to their safe space to take the drug, and second, they took too much of the drug.

The result? Several of the boys became aggressive before they arrived at the safe place. They attempted to get out of the car while it was moving down the road and they became quite violent.

The ‘babysitter’/driver wisely realized things had quickly escalated, and called friends from the boys’ school. Friends arrived, saw the boys’ state and realized the situation was entirely out of their league. One of the boy’s moms was called to the scene.

While several of the boys were ‘out of their minds’ due to the drugs, one boy, in particular, was in a very bad state. The mom on site did not know if the boy was overdosing or if the LSD had been laced with something. She immediately called an ambulance – and then called me. I remember her first words were something to the effect of: “I think he's okay … but ….” Then she gave me a summary of what was happening and asked me to call the boy's parents, as well as all the other parents whose children were involved.

As if there is ever a good time for a mom of five children to be out of town, when you get a call that your son has participated with four of his friends in an intricate plan to use LSD, being out of town is definitely not opportune. Yes, I was out of town in Seattle, Washington on a retreat when all of this was happening. I got the call at 10pm Seattle time. I called all the other parents involved (including my husband who was home with our younger children) and arranged for all of the boys' parents to meet at the hospital. I sat in my hotel room depending on my phone as a lifeline to hear what was happening. At first I was just worried about whether or not my son's friend was going to be okay. And then, when I knew his friend was going to survive, I was flat-out angry.

I sat on the couch in my hotel room and asked God: "What do I do?" I assumed when I asked, He would say, ‘Get on a plane and go home immediately!’ But he didn’t. He told me to stay at the retreat … that He knew, in His infinite wisdom, this drug-mess-with-my-son-and-his-friends was going to happen when He sent me to Seattle, and that I was to finish the retreat because I was going to be equipped with tools I needed to cope with this situation when I returned home.

It was a terrifying night being across the country and away from my family with so much hanging in the air medically with all of the boys. Fortunately, all five of them were released from the hospital and sent home to sleep it off. They were all deemed medically fine. That’s the good news. The bad news is that my son – and our family - faced some very life-changing consequences as a result of his one-time thoughtless actions that changed the trajectory of his life, and as a result, our lives.

You see, when unfortunate situations happen in our children’s lives --- like kids taking drugs, teen-age pregnancy, bullying, social media misuse, pornography addictions, drinking or alcohol abuse, drunk driving, expulsion … the list goes on – you can fill in your own blanks - whether we realize it or not, we almost always look for someone to blame. Why? Because we want to make sense of whatever is happening. And the easiest way to make sense of things when our world is spinning out of control is to assign blame.

1. “It’s the parent’s fault!” – Blaming the parents is always the easiest source of blame because it gives us our power back. “They must be negligent/absent/too strict/too permissive which is why "this" -- 'bad thing' happened to them.” When we blame the parents, we can know that we will do it differently and therefore ‘it’ (whatever bad ‘thing’ that happened to ‘their kid’) won’t happen to us.

2. Outside forces – Blaming outside forces such as friends, the internet, school, religion, satan, is also common. While all of these factors certainly may contribute to the cause, each one alone does not cause our child to act in a certain way. Our children must own their actions.

3. The Child – Lastly, we often blame the child who is in trouble himself, labeling his one act of indiscretion. Often we call these children: spoiled brats, a child who appreciates nothing, a ‘bad seed’.

When we assign blame, all we are really doing is running from the painful reality that God is in control, not us. And if you have read the Bible, you know that when God is in control, things get messy and bloody. While God allows messy and bloody, He also helps us clean up the mess and the blood. Then He asks us to offer our stories up to others for encouragement and wisdom, for His glory and for our own good and the good of others.

So, back to our story … Sunday afternoon, (I was still at my retreat in Seattle, can you believe it? -- Me either!) we got an email from my son’s school stating they were scheduling meetings with each of the five families to hear each of the boy’s stories. Each family would meet with school leadership individually.

None of the boys were permitted to go to school until leadership understood each situation better.

Our meeting was scheduled for 8:00 Monday morning. At this point I knew I had to get home from Seattle pronto! I was anxious to make the meeting because I hadn’t yet heard the story from my son, only what had been relayed to me from his dad and texting and calling the other moms.

That fateful Monday morning arrived. My husband and son met me at the school. (I was racing straight from the airport and my red-eye flight and whirred into the school parking lot with sweat on my brow at 7:57am, just in time for the meeting). Keep in mind, I had not, at this point, seen my son since 'the incident' and we had spoken only via phone about what had happened. It was an emotional moment and we were three minutes away from stepping into Senior Leadership's doors, all of whom were trusted mentors (and friends) our family respected, valued, and loved. We felt embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, sad, and concerned about the outcome of our son's future at the school. We knew using drugs was an extremely serious offense and our son's behavior would have consequences at home, yes, of course, and at school, as well. But we weren't sure if it would result in suspension or worse. We only knew the school's policy which was to handle these situations on a case-by-case basis.

I remember that morning so vividly: I couldn't help but feel a sense of heavy burden, wondering if my husband and I had failed our eldest son as parents. While my son's future at a school we adored was being weighed, I also was undergoing my own personal battle. As we stepped into that office, I also faced a brutal reality: I, too, was about to be 'judged' by the school, the community, and every mom who knew me and my son. Things were about to get real, real fast.

This is Part 1 of Christy's story. She'll conclude her story next week. Stay tuned. Thank you again, Christy, for your honesty and for being real with us. You inspire me and I know you will inspire countless others through your truth and your faith! Messes indeed become Messages if we allow them to!