Dread the Doorbell

There was a time when we lived on Strawberry Lane, and the boys were younger, that we cringed when the doorbell rang. The doorbell would ring, Bill and I would look at each other and say "Who is it now?".
Let's face it, you become conditioned to feeling a certain way when so many incidents occurred and the complainee would come to the door to speak to us.
The doorbell would chime and my stomach- 3rd chakra, solar plexus, would tighten as I steeled myself up for the next crisis.
Whether it was a neighbor complaining about one of the boys, the police about one of the boys, a neighbor about the dog, the police about the dog, the cable man about the boys, the garbage truck driver about the boys, the painter (who was painting OUR house) about the boys, or the work crew repairing OUR deck about the dog and the boys, it involved someone coming the door.
Since we have been at our new home, everything has been better (future post about that). We have been here two and a half years. All the previous conditioning about the doorbell had eased until yesterday.
"Who was that at the door?", I asked Bill as he returned to the family room.
"That was the local pizza delivery man with two checks that Rich wrote for food for $70 that were returned".
The checks were from an account that he knew had nothing left in it, because I advanced him some money and the bank sent me a notice-I was out a couple hundred bucks!
To top it all off, he signed (the checks didn't have his name on them) the checks "Larry Tate"! Yeah, and I'm Samantha Stevens!!
I didn't even know he watched Bewitched!!@
Well, now what? We have bailed that kid out so many times, and still he hasn't learned enough to retain what he has learned for future actions.
We decided we will NOT pay the pizza store, if they take action against him he will have to figure it out on his own.
When Bill confronted him about the checks, he denied he did any such thing.
How can you help someone who is in denial?
You Love your child so much, but God gave each of us free will. Free will means just that-freedom to make choices, right or wrong. By the same token, those choices have consequences, and by accepting your freedom you accept those also.
I love him and will always love him, but that doesn't mean I love the things that he does sometimes. The Godly thing is to truly feel love for someone even when they do
wrong. Just as God loves each of us when we continue to do wrong-and we all do in some way or another.
Love is the greatest of these...