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. 

"Do Over"

"The Times.  They are a changin'."  You are so right Bob Dylan. 

I will soon be an "empty nester".  My daughter has moved out and my son is leaving for college in three weeks.  Yes, I have Rene's boys, but it's not the same.  MY children are grown, and although I know I will always be a part of their lives, my "hands on" work with them is done.  Bizarre.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about the way I raised my children and there are things I am so proud of and things in which I have regrets.  There are things I wish I could "do over".  I want to share a few in hopes that you might avoid some of the pitfalls I fell into.

My "DO-OVER" Wish List

1) Pray for my children more
I prayed for my children, but I wish I had prayed for them more.  I wish I hadn't been so short-sighted in my prayers for them.  When they were little, I prayed for safety for them, guidance to raise them etc...but didn't pray for the people they would become.  I regret that.  Pray, pray, pray for your children.

2)  Choose carefully the "hills you are willing to die on"
In my zeal to be a good mom, I wasted a lot of time fighting with my kids over things that now seem trivial.  I fought with Rhianna over her hair, her clothes, her friends, her love of Orlando Bloom.  How dumb.  I now wish that I had said "YES" more so that when I said "NO" it would have had more impact.  There are issues that I am willing to figuratively "die' for.  Drugs. Purity. Jesus.  But whether or not she can wear her hair in a messy bun?  It seems so stupid now.  And controlling.  Choose carefully those hills!

3)  Spend time with your kids.  Not just doing the fun stuff, but teaching them life stuff.
I really wish I had spent more time teaching my children to how to cook, balance a check book, and why it's necessary to sort the darks and the whites.  I had my kids do chores, but other things, such as how to break down a whole chicken, I always did myself because it was easier.  Now that they will be on their own, I really wish I had taught them those skills.  If nothing else, they would have been able to save money replacing their clothes after laundry disasters.

4)  Watch your tongue
I am sure this one seems like a "no brainer", but let me explain.  I am a HUGE jokester.  I love to make jokes, tease and make people laugh.  I love the ease my children and I have with each other; the joking and the amazing sense of humor they both have, but I also know that there were times that I went too far and said things that hurt my kids.  I truly regret that.  Especially my tender girl.  Sorry Dolly.  My advice?  Don't do it.  Don't jest.  Don't tease.  It's too easy to slip up and too easy to hurt someone.  I also wish that I had worked harder to not speak ill or be critical of others in front of my kids.  I have fought with a critical spirit for years and it is one of my greatest sorrows to see that passed on in any degree to my children. 

The Bible is pretty clear:
    "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."  Ephesians 4:29

I think anyone who reads their Bible with any regularity knows of this verse, I know I sure did.  I justified my behavior however, by adjusting my definition of what "unwholesome" was.  In my brain it was "dirty" talk.  Sexual jesting, swearing etc.  Not even close to the kind of yakity-yakking I did with my children.  Just for kicks and giggles, I looked up "unwholesome" in the dictionary:

un·whole·some/ˌənˈhōlsəm/Adjective: Not characterized by or conducive to health or moral well-being.


Very convicting to me.  Was my teasing or joking conducive to my children's mental health?  Was my critical and unkind spirit encouraging to my children's moral well-being?  NO!  Watch your tongue!

Bottom line:  I love my children and I am very proud of the people they are.  I made a lot of mistakes, but God is bigger than my mistakes.  The times are a' changin', but I am changing too, and if someone wants to drop a baby on my doorstep, don't worry.  I got this.   

Withholding Good

I am going to tell you a story that makes me look bad.  I just have to put that out there. 

It's actually a story of me acting like this:

Instead of what I should have been, which is this:

The other day, I took the boys with me to Goodwill to help Rhianna look for some stuff she needed.  Rhianna and I start looking at clothes, and Joe asks if he and Josh can go look at books.  I tell that is fine, not to talk to strangers, don't eat things from the floor etc...and he and his brother happily go to look at books.

A little while later, Joe returns holding a book.  He says, "Hey Jessica, I found this book and it looks interesting."  I glance at him and say, without even thinking about it, "You're not getting that Joe."  He hangs his head and says, "Okay." and walks back to the books.  I watch him go to make sure he put it back and then continued on with the clothes hunt.

Right before we were all ready to leave, I with my goodies, Rhianna with hers and the boys with nothing, Joe comes up to me again holding the book and says, "Jessica, if you buy me this book, I will pay you back."  I tell him (in an irritated tone), "Joe, I already said no.  It's not okay for you to pester me.  I told you no and I mean it."  He again hangs his head and this time returns the book for reals.

(As if the above wasn't enough, here comes the part that really makes me look like a jerk.  Be prepared.)

On the drive home, Rhianna tells me that she is short on cash and I offer to lend her $20.00 without even a thought.  I go to the bank, get the money, hand it over to her and then we all go home.  I am ashamed to admit this, but the enormity of what I had done didn't even dawn on me until this afternoon, in the quiet of the day, when I finally had time to think it through.  I, without a thought, had refused to lend Joseph $1.49 but had no issues loaning Rhianna $20.00, and God, in His loving and gracious manner revealed to me why:  Rhianna is my child, Joseph is not.  I cry as I write this because as much as I care and love the boys, this incident exposed my heart and the feelings that I have that the boys just aren't "mine" and how desperately selfish these feelings had driven me to be.  I have always, always worried about becoming a "wicked" stepmother and this day was the first time I truly believed that I was.

The truth is that being a stepmother is the hardest thing I have ever done.  I wasn't there when these boys were developing their natures, their personalities, their childlike world views.  I came into the picture three and a half years ago with my children almost completely raised and pretty much the way I had hoped.  In envisioning what my life would be like at 40, it most certainly didn't include two chocolate-eyed ankle biters!  Most of the time, I feel like the "one parent too many" in this equation, and kind of miffed that I have all the responsibilities of mothering these two boys with none of the decision making power. 

But regardless of all that drama, malfunction and just plain sinfulness, none of this is the fault of those two little boys.  God drove this point home with this verse from Proverbs 3:27:

"Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act."

This thing I do know: those two boys deserve good.  They deserve love.  They deserve fairness.  They deserve books from Goodwill and the all the full attention and love I can offer them.  I may not be their mother, but I can be their friend.  I am so ashamed of the way I behaved, but I know that God revealed this cold, calloused part of my heart because He desires me to be more than I am.  With His help, I can take this ugly, jerky part of myself and grow up a little.  I am constantly amazed how often I still whine about the unfairness of life.  You'd think I would have gotten the memo.

So, on Saturday, when Joe returns to our house, he is going to find a book waiting for him.  With the help of my Heavenly Father, I am going to give Joseph not only the book that he asked for, but an open heart to give he and Joshua what God asked of me.   

Breaking Free from Family Patterns

One of the most heartbreaking memories I have of my mother occurred not when I was a child (although believe me, there were an abundance of those as well), but when I was well over thirty and reaching out to her in an effort to repair our very broken relationship.

I had been in therapy for over a year and a half, working through the pain of my sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her husband. My mom knew I was in therapy, but refused to speak to me about my past and patently refused to acknowledge the trauma I had experienced. She chose to shove her head in the sand and stonewall conversation by saying, "I don't remember, I didn't know, I did the best I could." These responses were unsatisfying to me. Without acknowledgement of wrongdoing and forgiveness, I knew that our relationship would be forever doomed to surface platitudes and deep-seated pain. I wanted so desperately to heal our relationship, to move past the hurt I felt toward her, that I approached my mother and asked her if she would join me at a counseling session since she was going to be in town anyway. I was overjoyed when she agreed.

I am sure you can figure out what happened next. She arrived at the therapist's office with an attitude. She was defensive and combative. She wouldn't listen to me, she interrupted me, she told the therapist to "shut up" and stormed out. My mom had walked away from me---again. It was over in less than 15 minutes. I was devastated. In that moment, I knew that I would never have the relationship with my mother that I wanted and that my dreams to be one of those women whose mom was their best friend was just that-a dream.

Fast forward ten years.

My daughter and I had hit a crossroads. We desperately loved each other, but could not communicate. Hurt feelings, misunderstandings, painful words and bucket loads of regrets had strained our relationship. During one of our last "skirmishes", after a complete rehashing of everything we had already said to each other a multitude of times, my daughter in her infinite wisdom said, "Mom. We need to go to counseling. We need help." I, in my pride and foolishness said, "No. YOU need counseling." and ended our conversation.

As a child of God, I am so blessed to know that regardless of my past or what has happened, God has enabled me to be different. To break the family mold, to move beyond my past. So many times I have seen person after person fall into the habits and mistakes of their parents and take the well-trod path of least resistance. Change is hard. Changing from family patterns is even harder--but not for my God. As I was standing in the shower, crying my eyes out over my broken relationship with my daughter, God brought to me a memory: My mom walking out that therapist's door and slamming it. I was immediately flooded with grief and shame. Grief over the loss of a relationship with my mother and shame that I had almost done the same to my child. I begged God to forgive me. I begged Him to help me be different. Mostly though, I begged God to help Rhianna forgive me of my stubborn heart.

Later, I texted my girl. I told her to book the appointment. I would do whatever it takes to save our relationship. I felt freed. I felt new.

And that, my friends is how God breaks someone free from a dysfunctional family pattern.