If We Get Chicken Soup For Our Soul, What Kind of Soup Does the Chicken Get?

   A father receives a frantic phone call at 4 in the morning. It's his daughter.   
  "Daddy, I screwed up big time," she says between sobs.
  The father replies; "its okay, calm down. Where are you?" Knowing pretty much by the feeling his gut tells him, she's in jail.
  "In jail Daddy, and you're going to be so mad at me when I tell you why."
  The father takes a deep breath and tell his distraught daughter, "its okay. I  think I have a good idea of why you're there. Just sit tight and I'll be there in a while." After which he sets his alarm for 7am and rolls back over and goes to sleep.
  Promptly at 7am the alarm goes off just as his phone rings. Again its his daughter and she's frustrated by now and it shows in her voice; "where are you?" she demands.
 "I just woke up." he tells her. "Just sit tight. I'll be there soon."
  With the number of the bail bondsman in his hand and money to bail his daughter out of jail he sets off.
  After 2 hours the bail is paid and she's free to go but not before being charged with driving while intoxicated, having illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia, a moving violation and no insurance.
   The father loves his daughter so instead of chewing her out and telling her how she screwed up, he tells her everything will work out in the end if she's willing to sacrifice, work hard and focus on what's most important; putting the night's events in her rear view mirror and taking care of herself and her infant son.
   After dropping is daughter off, the father has time to reflect on his actions during this moment. He wonders if he did the right thing. If perhaps the others of his children he's helped out of similar spots in the recent past has helped them or hindered their growth and maturation process. He wonders aloud to God if this is some sort of test to see just how much patience he has or is it a teaching moment for him from God and God saying to him in a still small loving voice... "my son, you are the definition of insanity. You keep bailing your children out over and over thinking that they'll learn and do things differently, but all you're doing is enabling them and teaching them to think that they can make descisions with halting consequences and their parents will fix their missteps. YOU are holding them back. STOP IT!!! You can not continue to do what you're doing and expect a different result. That is just plain crazy..."
   So the father thinks to himself... "right? So I guess some times the hard thing to do, let them dig themselves out of the mess they've made for themselves though hard to do, is the right thing to do;" he says to God as he drives home.
   The feeling that stirs in his soul tells him he's finally getting it figured out. And the thought occurs to him in that moment; "I didn't say it would be easy. But I promise it will be worth it."
   Though it's difficult for the father to not worry about his daughter - for there will always be a father's concern for his children; his lesson learned is this:  it's okay for his children to make mistakes, learn how to fix them and its okay to be supportive without being enabling...support strengthens, enabling weakens... DUH! Why is it so hard to see that sometimes?

:-)