I keep forgetting to post about something that has been on my heart since Sunday afternoon.

When I went to visit Middle Boy all of the unit visitors were sitting in the waiting room when a child was released.  According to the person picking him up he had been there a couple of weeks.  You could literally hear everyone gasp when this boy walked through the doors.  There is NO WAY he was more than seven or eight years old.  NO WAY.  The boy looked terrified.

I just pray for that boy and for his family.  I can't believe that the juvenile center is equipped to handle kiddos that young.  Maybe he was deceptively young looking...I hope that was the case. 

Continued prayer for all of the kids in the juvenile center.  Continued prayer for the families of those kids.

I have become acquainted with a number of the families who visit at the same time as I do.  There are the grandparents who have custody of their three teenage grandsons.  Two of them are there in the unit.  There is the mother and sister who visit someone who is on his third trip to the center.  There is the mom who cries every time she visits for the whole time.  There is the mom who is dutifully there every Wednesday and Sunday and her son won't talk to her.  They just sit silently at a table in the room, but she is there every time.  There is D...my friend...who I have laughed with and cried with.  As a group we all pray together before visits.  Something I would have never expected, but have come to embrace.

It seems everyone has court between now and the end of the year.  Each time I pray that someone from our visiting group will be gone.  That means someone got to go HOME.

Prayers for all of these people.