A Kind of Armageddon

Last night I finally reached the end of the photos. 

For the past two years, I have been working on reorganizing all the photos that I have accumulated in the past 20+ years. I have been taking them out of the albums, labeling the back with names, dates etc...and then filing them in a photo box.  It has been a tough road. In fact, I have only worked on it when I have a couple of days to devote to it because it is a long and time consuming process (thus the two years).   Lo and behold, this past week I had the flu sent from some under-minion of Satan, and my hubby suggested I spend my couch time sorting through the last two albums I had left. Since all I could do was sit, I decided to go for it and THIS time I would finish. And I did.

I have no more albums left and I filed the last picture.  I labeled the last label.  And I wept.  Not with joy over finishing a project; but with sorrow and grief because when I look in my children's photo boxes I see this: 

The significance of that year cannot be over-looked.  It was that year that my marriage ended.  It was that year that my children's family was destroyed and here was the proof of that destruction contained in an insignificant photo box.

As I looked through year after year of photographs, I finally understood what my children had lost.  I always understood intellectually, but I never really understood in my heart.  Last night, right now at this moment...I understand and I cry.  To my children, there is nothing but happy memories in those pictures.  They never knew that saddness and pain in their parent's marriage and that is good.  They could be children and be secure in the knowledge that all was right in the world.  I look at the pictures and I know our marriage was a painful mess, but my kids never knew that.  Not until their Dad sat us all down in the living room in December 2007 and told us he was leaving.  And in that moment...Armageddon for the family they had always known.

I write this blog today because I want you to know that once you have children, your marriage isn't just for you anymore.  It's for them too.  Your marriage is a bedrock foundation on which your children build every belief they have about love, relationships, security and stability.  If you are struggling in your marriage, if you are toying with the thought of leaving, giving up and walking away, I implore you...I beg you...don't.  Stay.  Fight.  Fight for your marriage, fight for your children, fight for their future.  Divorce has devastating and long-lasting consequences and in ways you can't even fathom or imagine.  I know that I never thought I would be putting together photo boxes seven years after my divorce and weeping for my lost family.  That pain just never goes away and I am an adult who went through the divorce....imagine the loss for the children.  For me, I don't have to imagine...I have the evidence of their destroyed family sitting in six photo boxes in my living room. 

Please fight for your marriages.  Please fight for your family.  Just keep trying.  Please. 

A Divine Romance

Did you know it's National Marriage Week?

Yeah, neither did I. How could such an important subject and an important institution get no attention? Be passed over or ignored? I don't understand it, but I decided to do something about it. I want to acknowledge what marriage means to me.

Marriage matters even if the institution itself has taken a beating in the last several years. My marriage matters to me. As the child of divorced parents and putting my kids through divorce, I want to state unequivocally that I believe in marriage. I believe in soul mates. I believe in "Happily Ever After", white picket fences and holding hands when you are 90 years old. Having spent years in quiet unhappiness, finding The One who has made my heart sing fills me with such joy I cannot adequately express it.

"I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go..." Song of Solomon 3:4

I love Rene'. He is the peanut butter to my jelly, the peas to my carrots. He has taught me so much about patience, steadfast faith, and the joy of homemade refried beans. He laughs at me and thinks I am cute. I dig that. God has used my marriage to Rene' to challenge me and to grow me. Every day I have to make the choice to put another's needs greater than my own and to esteem him greater than I esteem myself. Hot dog is that hard! Some days I don't really give a crap what he wants or needs. Some days I just want to showboat it and do it my way. But usually, that selfish desire doesn't last too long seeing as I have done it "my" way in the past and yeah, it didn't work out so well.

"More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse." ~Doug Larson

Blending families has taught me much about myself as well. I never thought of myself as a selfish person until I became a step-mother. Truth is: sometimes I don't WANT to step up and be there. Sometimes I have sullen, sulky thoughts like, "I raised my kids...why the heck do I have to raise more!" Or, "These aren't my kids...why am I pouring out all my heart into them only to have it stepped on?" I have learned some not-so-favorable things about myself because Joseph and Joshua are in my life and I am being forced to grow up. Trust me, this is a good thing. I don't want to be the proverbial "wicked step-mother" so I know I have to die to myself every single day and confront my "true" self on a daily basis. Without Joe and Josh, I doubt I would have never seen this side of myself and know I would've have missed an opportunity to grow. I am grateful for them.

"You can never be happily married to another until you get a divorce from yourself. Successful marriage demands a certain death to self." ~Jerry McCant

Bottom line: marriage is hard. Life is messy. Marriage is divine and sacred. It's never easy. It's the hardest thing I have ever done and it's completely worth it.