What it feels like...

What does it feel like to sentence someone to death?  While I'm certainly not 100% certain... I feel like today, I did just that.  Not necessarily a literal death, but hope died today in my office for one young man.  
  He's one of the most intelligent, charismatic, beautiful young men that has ever set foot on our campus.  This young man... I've been walking with him for 3 years. We've walked through major abuse, removal, reunification, pornography, lying, stealing, and now even more difficult things that not only effect him, but innocent people, too.  We've done counseling... time away... controlled environment... mercy... discipline... only to find a heart that has hardened by life's hurts.  
What I wouldn't give to go back 10 years... hold him when he was young... feed him when his mother was too sick to do it... nurture him when his father died.  correct him when he came home late, or was choosing bad friends... sing over him songs of love... tell him that Jesus loves him... and that he is certainly special because he was GOOD.  
His burdens of life have become too much.  Addictions in place of self control, deception in place of honesty... but even now... I'm still holding on to the truth that Jesus can.  
Jesus can change a man.  I need a Saul to Paul experience with this one.  
While it looks as if I have given up, be assured, I have not.  It is sometimes in life's greatest disappointments, trials, or disciplines that true change can occur.  It isn't one I like to hand out, but when all other options have been through... again and again and again... one has to stop sewing seed on the rock. 
As I saw him walk out of our office... I could barely stand it.  I felt like the father to the prodigal son... no... the mother.  Painful.  Hoping one day, we will see him again in a better condition.  The reality is, however, unless something changes... he is walking out to a very long road... where education will be difficult to find, jobs impossible, food will be rare.  
I can't stand it.  I feel like I have sentenced him to a hopeless life.  I held his mother's hand... and we cried together... recounting how many times we've begged him to do the right things... no remorse... no promise of change. Hope died for her today.  Hopes she had for her son's life.  No one wants to be the mother to Saul... Judas... Samson... but the truth is... it could be any one of us.  
So today is a sad day for me.  One of our firstborn children has left our program heading into a life that isn't promising of hope apart from Jesus.  I can't stand it.  I also can't rescue him. I've tried. I've failed. But Jesus... 
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with CHRIST..." Eph 2: 4-5