State of transitions.......or was that confusion?

Some days, I am so lonely that life seems mostly pointless.  When did living a full and amazing life become contingent upon having a man in my life?  By now, I have become resigned to the fact that I will probably not ever have a real, healthy relationship with a man who truly loves me for myself.  A woman of conviction can learn to accept some things about the transition points of her life and adjust accordingly.  Is this something that I am sure about? Absolutely not.  However, what I CANNOT consider is a life with a man who doesn't respect and love me at least as much as he does himself and God. This is not an issue that I am willing to bend on.  Having so many friends who married out of necessity (as I once did) for a parent for their children, or just for the sake of thinking that it was time to be "married," I have decided that the benefits of this type of union absolutely do not outweigh the negatives.  

Hours have passed into days, into weeks, into years, and now a decade.  I am divorced and have been for ten years.  This is a state of being that I feel has become the prominent source of my identity, like the plastic shrink wrap of my life.  I too am a mother and this also has confined me, as my children must have a mother that is respectable.  However, their time as children is coming to an end and I will begin a new chapter of my life that focuses on myself instead of everyone else.  I have definitely kept myself in a box for the greater good, however, I feel like my life is false and unsatisfying.  There is a person in this body and mind who is screaming, pleading to plant un-calloused feet on the ground.  Some days, I feel that I may become brave enough to poke my finger through and breathe the air outside, but mostly, I push it to the limit, yet the wrap stays intact. 

Slowly Seeping Through.........

Often, I am ashamed at how much stock I put into my own misery, having never considered those who are on the front lines everyday being martyrs for Christ.  I would like nothing more than to pack up and my life and march headstrong into the jungles of Ecuador like Rachel Saint, and give my entire life serving God.  Someday, perhaps that will be a possibility, but I'd rather be a missionary in my own country.  Teaching is my gift and I know that I could use this in a powerful way, given the opportunity to work in a unconfined, non-secular school environment.  Unfortunately, for now, God is still working out the kinks in my chain and trying to turn me into something that is practical and useful for his glory.  Somedays I don't think there is enough grease to get the knots worked out. 

I get wrapped up in how flawed and horrible I am, then I realize that the enemy is writing that dialogue in my own mind, especially for an audience of one.  How privileged am I that the evil one is pining away on my behalf?  Better I realize this now and finally learn to take these thoughts captive than to wallow in loathing and self-pity what life I have left to live. 

My life is small, mostly a prison of my own construction, keeping things the way that I like them.   Recently, I have decided to sledgehammer the side of my fortress out to let the sunlight in.  What also came in were some pretty amazing people that I have been shutting out of my life for a long time.  The thought of this really terrifies me, as betrayal is the most prevalent devastation that I have ever endured.  It seems worse than a death to my heart because I still have to confront those people from time to time.  But a God who gave his son to die in my steed, can convict me that the key to my own sorrows in life is the forgiveness that he gave me when Jesus went to the cross.  I have been so unworthy, yet I know that the cross was for me.  I hope that I can stay in the shadow of the cross as to not be blinded by all that is outside that protective shield.  I also hope that I can determine the best balance to live out the rest of whatever days that I have in his will while doing his work.  And perhaps, that balance will allow the things of God to slowly seep through to clothes me in righteousness and grace. 

Discombobulated and nearing the end of the tunnel.

Throughout the entire year, I am busy, working, volunteering, church, kids, etc, etc.  The thought had not occurred to me until recently that I keep myself this busy so that I do not have to deal with the things that haunt me every day.  If I am invested in everyone else's lives, then I do not have to tune in to my own life.  After a decade of this, I may be to the end of my physical, mental, and emotional barrel. 

After ten years, I have never dealt with the affects and effects of my divorce.  I have packed those wounds with sawdust and let them scab over, while festering and rotting inside.  I have covered them with a deep layer of fat armor.  If the shell seems intact, then who is to question anything.  The problem now is that I cannot seem to keep my head above water.  I feel like I am suffocating and letting myself fall, almost to the point of no return.  Then, I pop back up,  terrified, but powerless to change things from what they are now.  This scares the hell out of me because I feel that I cannot change, and that someday soon, it will be too late. 

I question if anyone besides my kids would even notice if I were no longer here.  I am not planning on killing myself, I just have dreams of going to sleep and never waking up.  If I didn't wake up, how long would it be before anyone found me?  When the busyness of life disappears and I am left to myself, alone, it is more daunting than I can almost bear.  It is no wonder that I have not given myself a free minute for so many years. As my children get to the point of making their way in the world, I have come to a stark realization that I will soon have to find my own way within a new skin, that of a mother of grown children. I feel ill equipped. 

I don't feel old enough to have grown children.  Mentally, I am still that 18 year old who is deciding what to do with her life, where to go, what dreams to live out, how to find happiness.  My life never really began because I left others overun my life, my dreams.  I allowed them in to take what they wanted, leaving my heart and life a desolate wasteland.  They took my very soul and left me nothing in return.  I have been nothing but an animated carcass of a human being, going through the motions, never finding joy and peace, those things that I know God wants for me.  For the longest, I lived, hoping that routine could replace love.  Sadly, I am finding that not to be true. 

I have so much anger, despair, doubt, fear, loathing, disappointment and grief for time lost.  As much as it pains me to say, I look at my children with resentment because of the sacrifice of time and a life to raise them that feels lost.  I love these kids from the bottom of my heart, and the shame rises up in me like vomit, but I cannot help but to admit that I feel this way.  I have had a special needs child who takes everything from me until I am almost nothing.  It puts a knot in my throat that never leaves because I feel this way.  The root of my despair lies with my ex-husband who still cannot hold a job or be responsible for any part of raising these kids.

A 40 year-old man should be able to have accountability in this world for those whom he helped bring into the world.  Why oh why do I always have to be the responsible one?  If I weren't the responsible one, what would that look like?  Nonetheless, I am here because these kids were brought here by me, chosen by God to be my kids.  I count it a blessing that I have been bestowed this honor.  I just cannot find the balance for the in-between parts that I seek to help me full contentment and fulfillment.  I feel more unworthy than I can ever express in words. 


I have raised my children to hopefully have a love for God and a standard for what is acceptable in their own lives. Even if I have trouble feeling it in mine.    I have clawed my way to hopefully not be in the category of poverty anymore, because the stigma that comes from that label is not one that I want for my kids. 

So why can I not overcome this? 

We are only as sick as our secrets.............

I live in secret, a voyeur of monolithic proportion.  I do not live an authentic life of my own because I am an outsider of reality.  I focus on things that I have power over, that I can be in charge of, and leave the rest to the wayside of my life.  I covet this as success, though to a healthy, well-rounded person it is a farce.   I am a participant in life, like a member in an audience, and when the show is over, I go home, alone, confined, lost.   This is a coping mechanism that I use to protect me from that which  I fear that I  cannot overcome.  It is built on the fear of all that has been lost and all that can be swept away in life.  It leaves me feeling empty- a crust atop of nothingness, a significant outer shell of no substantive worth.  This is the secret that I live.......one that I want to break wide open and find the root of.  There are so many reasons why I should not, but the hurt of it all is a constricting noose that notches in on me inch by inch until I can hardly breathe.  Lately, I feel it tightening more and more.

I have built a life of caring for others, with the hope that those people will throw a bit of love and light my way.  It leaves me feeling leeched upon with nothing left to give and it is time that I begin to find my place in the world independent of those who rely on me so much.  It feels like I'm scavenging for leftovers in the world and apparently I have become ok with that.  Why do I not value myself more than that? Why do I feel that I need permission to become the person that I want to be?

So many internal questions, struggles, and pain in need of a deep catharsis.  Why does therapy cost so much money that a single mother cannot afford to go and seek healing for herself?  Why does everything in this life revolve around finances?



"You can't conquer what you don't confront, you can confront what you don't identify."

Damn--the truth stings a little bit.

A few steps back......just my kind of stride.

One step forward, twenty steps back.  Today felt as though the retraction was 500 steps.....

Major, life altering decisions never come easily.  Accustomed to ritual and routine, any disruption, whether it be for the good or adversely lends itself to unrest.  Replacing old bad habits with good ones or just trying to tweak things, ever so slightly to find an improvement.  Recently, I made one of those life altering decisions.  It took me many months to arrive at the decision and commit to it fully.  Then, a financial set-back left me hopeless.  I accepted that circumstance, then, what seemed to be a saving grace manifested itself five days ago.  My plan was back on track, praise be to God!

Then today, I received an e-mail while at work, saying that the plug was pulled on the project for good.  A person whom I love and trusted had promised to help me.  I put all of my eggs in his basket and he let me down tremendously.  I was devastated.  It would definitely had been much more productive in my eyes to have never been given the false hope that had sustained me for the past several days.  It seems cruel, but you know, praise still be to God.

You see, as I was in tears, a co-worker that I had comforted three years ago when his wife had miscarried their first baby, was in the room.  He asked me what was wrong and instead of holding it in and keeping it all to myself, which is very uncharacteristic of me, I broke down.  After he listened, he proceeded to tell me the most important thing that I was to hear this whole day.  J told me that although it didn't seem like it, that God's plan was still secure and in place.  He also told me that over the past four years that he had worked with me, that he had seen how I have struggle as a single mom.  He also told me that I have given my children the one thing that he never got as a child--I had given my children the opportunity to know Jesus.  He told me that although I couldn't give my kids the material things that they wanted, it was my lack of opportunity that had caused my kids to become great.  J talked about my son's affinity for music and how that would have probably never been cultivated had he been given every video game and gadget.  He talked about my daughter's artistic nature and how she loves creating things and using her imagination and how if I had given her computers and other distractions, that she would not be the artist that she is today.

So, my apparent loss, was an opportunity for the father to console me through a good friend.  His timing is never lost or imperfect and tomorrow, I will move on and seek the wisdom that can only come from the only one who has never forsaken me.  If I get to hang out with Jesus as he tries to show me all that I can glean, then a few steps back, is just my kind of stride.

Redemption In Small Doses

Such a foreign concept is redemption, for those who do not understand "in the long run" thinking.  Growing up with Pagans who only knew how to live day to day never lent itself to become intrinsically motivated to trust in things that one cannot see.  A faith-based concept, such as redemption, must have a point of reference, a personal connection, or it is as insignificant as a television commercial playing in the background of a room full of distraction.  This was true for myself and anyone else that grows up without God and limited means of fiscal responsibility.  Poverty preys on the weak and godless.

Growing up in a home of poverty, did not teach me to invest for the future.  My father was the son of middle-class alcoholics and my mother was one of eight children of migrant farmers and she never got enough attention.  They grew up and ran away from their families and did things their own way.  They both alienated their own families and as children, my brother and I never really knew a family dynamic that was not stressful or loving.  It is so much easier to live, not knowing what is on the other side.  For me, that was never a possibility.  God had a hold on my life before I was ever aware that he even cared for me.

Financially inept, my parents went to the grocery store EVERY day for dinner items.  We were always out of toilet paper and the electricity and water were constantly shut off.  Our cars were always piecemeal and broken down, but my parents were never without a cigarette.   There was always beer in the fridge and PGA (pure grain alcohol), Bacardi mix, and vodka in the freezer.  And if the party wasn't at our house, then they were gone every weekend.  Work hard all week and party hard all day on Saturday, that is your reward for a short-term, low-yielding life.    If you talk my parents today, they would tell you that they were great parents.  Oblivion is another trait of poverty that does not lend itself to significant change generationally.

Investing in my life was never more than short-term, because that was all that I had ever learned.  Unlearning something is the hardest thing to do.  As a teacher, it is so hard to unteach something to a kid that has been built around a misconception.  At almost 40 years old, I am having to relearn so much that has cost me a life-time of happiness.  I am on the precipice of a life that is different........

Investing in anything is a learned skill, pruned and nurtured, with time and patience.  Life must slow down enough to see the benefit of planting for the harvest, then waiting for the bounty.  A child of poverty never gets to see this in action.  Living for the moment is the prevalent mentality of those who cannot figure out how to see the big picture.  It is propelled by society at large, through isolated instances of windfall days that meander away as soon as the money is spent.  Tax returns, insurance settlements, and lottery winnings, create a sense of richness, and an urgency to procure the things that they may never get if the money is in the bank.  A sense of entitlement reigns true as though an impoverished person has been waiting on a payment that is long overdue.  These things create a false sense of security, status, and satisfaction, that will never be paramount to paving the road of the true richness that can be found through a relationship with Christ.

Forgiveness is free.   Christ love costs nothing out of pocket, grace is all-powerful; for everyone, and redemption for sin is priceless.  So how is the church missing the mark on witnessing to those in poverty? The church doesn't have a worldview that is empathy driven.  The church SHOULD know what it is like to live like someone who is not putting up treasure on Earth, however, this is just as foreign of a concept for the church as redemption is for someone who has always known that everything comes for a price.