Connected

I have to admit, I was feeling pretty proud of myself! I dedicated hours to analyzing fifty-five incident reports for one of my residents to collect data to present to his case worker. You might be thinking, "So what?" but, keep in mind the population I serve. When I refer to incidents, I really mean incidents. So this is not fun reading, folks. So, fifty-five incidents all within forty-seven weeks. Twenty-five of these incidents involved sexual misbehaviors. Yep. And this kid is twelve. Like I said, not fun reading. Twenty-six of these incidents involved aggressive or threatening behaviors. You get the picture. The list goes on and on. The numbers are astounding. This child literally does nothing but instigate and sexually act out. Sounds like I'm being pretty cold hearted, huh? But it's true! And I'm beginning to understand why. This poor child has been in over ten foster homes and facilities in his twelve years of life. He has endured abuse and neglect. He has never felt unconditional love. His own mother did not want him. And now he's left so isolated, feeling unattached. What easier ways are there to have intense interactions with people besides ticking them off and being sexual with them? And as he does these things, he is rejected. Isolated even more. So he ups the antics. Even more aggressive. Even more sexual. He is now to the point of threatening to kill others and propositioning people, both at least once per day. Connection. That's all he wants and this is the only way he knows how to get it. The only possible real connection he could really have right now is with God. There truly is no one else in his life except people paid to speak to him. And so I've been thinking about this a lot. A twelve year old boy, already deemed a predator, possibly even facing the registry. What possible connection with God could he already have? How could a connection be established when this child seems to have no sense of any entity outside of himself and his pain? What will God do with this child's life, after already committing such terrible deeds? Is it in God's plan that this child would do such awful, harmful things? The questions just go on . . . I started out feeling proud, but now I just feel . . . blah. But somehow in my questions, in all these thoughts and blahness (it's a word!), I feel the most connected that I've felt in a while. Weird. Any thoughts?