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If you are considering adopting older children from the foster care system, please go read An Unlit Path and Dandelion on My Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath . Imagine a life ten times worse than both books combined, if you think you can handle spending most of your time in Hell's Waiting Room with Satan attacking you constantly, then by all means, give it a go.

Thankfully if you've been called to do so, then you'll feel God's presence as well, while you question Him aloud no more than a hundred thousand times a day, thinking death would be an amazing and welcome escape from the constantly unendurable onslaughts.

I've watched kids and grown kids deplorably bail out of our family shockingly unexpectedly, reprehensibly cutting off any possible means of reconciliation. Forgiveness is possible, communication can not ever be so, due to our dumb and demanding needs for permanent safety

Awoken just an hour or so after I'd fallen asleep the other night, sneaking out of my own house to call the police on another line, heart pounding stress multiplied, living on adrenaline as food for the next 36 hour period, when I do publish my book, even long-time blog readers, family members, and dear friends will be stunned at what I've plowed through.

How could that not be so as I only sit down for a brief period, belching out my excruciating words that could only cover one event, or one conversation, out of 39 possibilities and any preceding 24 hour period?

And I do not discuss everything with all family members. It is on a need-to-know basis that eliminates unnecessary details. I do not feel the need to discuss everything with everyone. I have a few trusted confidants.

Some stuff is simply too devastating, horrific, battering, and decimating to even contemplate, much less relive verbally.

It's unthinkable. There's no humanity involved at times.

I practically begged a deputy to come live with us yesterday, apparently freshly divorced, as others around us remarked, "I didn't know that. When'd that happen?" to him. Waking up dead is a distinct possibility, and even a viably desirable option for me each morning from the unrelenting shock alone. An immediate heart attack from phone calls, or a stroke from within, all painfully possible for a mother like me.

Oh heck no, I'm not exaggerating.

I never even turned on my computer since Thursday, receiving your emails and comments through my Blackberry sustained me as I struggled; crying, sniveling, whimpering and wondering if I'd survive this calamitous blow as well.

Why would I want to? Who wants to continue living on this earth?

Talking briefly with my pastor yesterday comforted me somewhat. Leaving this world seems to be the only way to end the relentless pain of living here, but I'm crazy in love with some valuable family members, and that alone way far outweighs the annihilating grief caused by maybe a third of the others.

I awoke this morning surprised to see the sun coming up, crushed immediately by thoughts of yesterday, deciding I'd throw myself into hard labor, change my house around, silence the phones, turn off the laptop, and sweat and think, pray and ruminate, plan and accomplish, and dwell on the decency in human nature that eludes me from so many in my family.

Using the word family, at times, seems an utter affront to the very word. It's been one-sided for maybe a third of my children. I'm merely an unpaid babysitter maid target who's easy to resent for doing what the birth mothers would not do for them. They'll hate me forever unthinkingly, unable to ever comprehend any sort of decency, civility or deportment that will not lead to permanent incarceration. It's not for a lack of trying on my part, I'll tell you that.

In too many cases, the damage is insurmountable and unvanquishable.

There should be an out...a rule for adoptive parents that would immediately and permanently remove folks that only ravage others, when catastrophic events occur, the wagons should encircle the victimized family who has suffered so terribly. Again, I do not exaggerate. I've told you all before that I'm the strongest woman I know, and truly I am. Therefore if I can even briefly be tempted by the thought to consider doing away with myself, to make the pain stop, just to end the relentless grief of destroyed lives, lives that might have been doomed since birth by the despairing circumstances involved and the torture that followed...if someone so strong as I am, can be so debilitated by events...can professionals not comprehend that so much more outside help is needed? Please don't attack the caregiver who struggles, despairs, and still gets up each day to face another version of Hades.

Well then imagine how much harder it must be to be my children, who've never known anything but chronic chaos and severe distress, until they arrive here, confused and emotionally crippled?

I will make it through. I will survive, I will remain strong. I will not allow circumstances, nor the havoc and pillage that accompanies me uninvited each day, to win.

I will prevail as long as I keep allowing God's presence to work through me. Y'all's prayers sustain me. Again I promise you that is all I need. It truly is. I will continue to bumble through. I will make mistakes, I will learn, I will fight bitterness and the sad, sad feelings of living a life not worth living sometimes.

I will continue to help the resilient ones in my family to make good choices and to succeed. I will continue to seek and to absorb the help that is given to us by the exemplary professionals we've found along this journey and I've been incredibly blessed in that respect.

Honey, it's these kids that are nearly doing me in...