The sins of the father *and mother*

I don’t want to get off on a parent bashing blog. This is not the intention of this entry I’m about to write. It’s just something that I have found in the last few hours to be something that is hurting and I have to get it out, to sort through the feelings and emotions and to ask God, “what is really going on here? Is my sadness and anger and hurt justified? What is the bigger picture here? How can it help?”

When Rob and the kids came into my life (or should I say when I came into THEIR lives) I imagined this life being very easy. We adored each other, the children and I. They were easy to get along with, funny and sweet and it was apparent their daddy adored them and they adored him. Things progressed very quickly with Rob and I. We hadn’t intended on getting married until July and living together before marriage was out of the question.
Then things changed.
Rob was kicked out of his mom’s house with the kids and they had no where to go. I had a one bedroom apartment and so they moved in with me. Plans came crashing down for the big wedding and we rushed to get married as soon as possible.
Even when the kids were living with me it still seemed easy. They were still seeing their mother on a weekly basis and it still seemed like a fairytale, nothing seemed real and our lives went on.
I read the court papers, the testimony of how their mother treated them and cried. How could someone do this to her children? What had THEY done so wrong to not get the best mother that they deserved?
So, we got married, Rob and I and within the first week, life, just, BOOM, happened. I realized that I was a step mom of 3 kids who didn’t have the easiest life before I came around.
And man, it was hard.
Rob and I attended family conferences before we got married, I was sure we were ready, we had it together. There would be no old tapes, or sneaker waves, or rocks in the bucket, we would be perfect…right?
Wrong.
Their mother completely dropped out of their lives towards the end of Summer, I got pregnant and my sanity quickly started unraveling.
I began wondering if this was really the life I was supposed to have. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Did I not listen to someone somewhere at some time? Was I living in a fantasy world?
I began to feel horrible. I wasn’t treating them very nicely. My temper was short, my patience non-existant and I frequently heard from Rob, “Be gentle with them, be a mom to them, show them love.”
How could I? They weren’t mine! If their own mother couldn’t love them, how could I? I could love them as children, I could love them because I loved Rob but could I love them because I thought of them as my own?
Then I had the horrible realization of my OWN life. Was I loving them any better than I had been loved growing up? Was I treating them really any better than my stepdad and even mother had loved me? Didn’t they deserve more than what I got? Didn’t I spend my whole life thinking I would love my kids better than I had? Maybe I had loved Alex the way I should have, but what about them? Wasn’t it even MORE important to love them the RIGHT way?
Things started stabalizing emotionally, Rob and I started getting along again and I started thinking of my own childhood on a regular basis. Was I using gentle encouraging words? Was I using God’s word to teach and discipline and love?
It came to a head today when I was on the phone with my mother. For whatever reason she doesn’t like the kids. I have confided in my mother when things have been hard and my husband hasn’t heard my pleas or cries. Isn’t that what a woman does? Confide in her mother? But it just wasn’t the bad times I told her about, I told her about the good and the sweet times I have shared with them, but it just seems like her heart hardened towards them.
After she said numerous rude comments about the children I finally had to set her straight.
Was she loving them as she loves Alex? Doesn’t she realize what they have gone through? Why can’t she be encouraging and uplifting? Doesn’t she see how hard I’m trying and loving and being more than she was?
The fact of the matter is, they’re NOT my biological children. I didn’t get to write pregnancy journals or baby books for them like Alex and now Brody has. I didn’t stay up at night with them and nurse them back to health, didn’t see first steps and first words or first toothless smiles, but it doesn’t change what they are to me.
They are the children God gave me in the unusual way that he gave them to me. The day I promised my life to Rob, I promised my life to Harmony Ian and Seth. If people can’t accept ALL of us, they can’t accept ANY of us.
Maybe their mother has dropped the ball on them, but I won’t do the same thing to them. I won’t love them with a second handed love. They won’t get leftovers from Alex and Brody.
They are MY children, my world, my life and somehow, God, in his all knowing entrusted me to them. I’m coming to realize that the abuse I went through, the years of not being loved and celebrated was for THIS moment in my life. I was a lowly stepchild so that I could be a better mother to them.
What God does every day is amazing and even if we don’t understand at the time we just need to wait and pray and hope and pray some more and sooner or later he will reveal himself, but in HIS time.
I have One God, one husband and five children and nothing in this life will ever come close to those gifts.

Speaking in tongues

Now that my intro is over and done with, I HAD to post about what I really wanted to today. I thought I could wait until tomorrow, but I’m going to learn to do something NOW instead of putting it off and hoping that inspiration will strike at a different time.
Pastor Chuck was preaching today on Hebrews 2:4 *As a fond sidenote we started the book of Hebrews on December 5th. Chuck jokingly [I think] said that the book of Hebrews could take years. At the time everyone laughed and thought, “What a silly man!” But looking out now, I think it MIGHT be true, since we are now in March and just starting the 2nd chapter, but I digress*
Anyway, today was the topic of tongues aka languages and while I won’t go into the details of Chuck’s sermon, since I will do it NOT justice at all, after looking into the book of John, it made me think of my OWN tongue experiences.
I was raised primarily in First Assembly of God church, which is, as I see now at least mildly charismatic. There was speaking in tongues and healing of sicknesses. Once, I went to a foursquare church with my friend Lee Anne and a couple of pastors were casting the devil out of a parishioner. She said, “Please don’t tell your mom, she’ll never let you come again.” What was the big deal? I had seen devils being casted out before!

And so my journey went.

When I was 18, Alex’s dad and I started going to Living Water Christian Church on Queen St in Albany. We went there for almost a year and a half and recounting the scripture and stories about tongues today my mind drifted back to that time in my life and the time spent at the church.

First, it was co lead by a married couple, which was a big no-no. (see 1 Tim 2:11-12, 1 Cor 11:3 and 1 Cor 14:34-35)

Second, the woman pastor would stand up at the pulpit and call people forth to speak in tongues. ( 1 Cor 12:1-11 and *this one is GOOD 1 Cor 14:18-40)

If you could not speak in tongues she would tell you that you had the devil inside of you and he needed to be cast out. If you had the devil in you she would stand over you and get this really mean look on her face and wave her hands in front of you and all the sudden people would fall! Then a deacon or elder would lay a red blanket over you while you laid down to pray and I guess repent? Then it would recycle over and over again. I would do one of two things when this occurred. I would either find that to be the opportune time to go change Alex or just sit in my seat praying I wouldn’t be called on. I would make up “tongues” in my head, just so if I was called up there I could show her I COULD speak in tongues. Better to make a fool out of myself then be declared to have the Devil in me!

I really don’t know how we lasted there that long, but we did.

Anyway, that’s my terrifying tongues story.

Well, hi there!

I used to journal all the time, like non stop. I was the obsessive two to three times a day blogger. It was my outlet, my sanctuary. My words typed out quickly helped me deal with the everyday life, the occasional joy and the always constant struggle. My life was nothing but negativity and journaling helped me escape my thoughts and once it was down, typed out, published I vowed to forget it and just move on.
And it worked for years.
The last few years though? Not so much. Sure, I THINK about blogging, but it never truly comes into play. I’ll be sitting at work and thinking, “hmm that would be a good blog.” However, when I get home and reality hits me in the face that idea is quickly shoved to the back of my mind and the next day happens, and the one after that.
The funny thing is when I think of these hypothetical blogs, as of late, they’re nothing like they used to be. Truthfully, every six months or so I will go back to an old journal entry on opendiary.com and read who I was. She was sad and depressed and had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was vile and corrupt and a liar. She was promiscuous and a trickster and overall a victim.
She was me before Jesus.
So, when I’m feeling like I’m having one of “those” days, you know, the kind where you think God REALLY had his work cut out with YOU, I read those and I’m thinking, “Yes, I’m still vile and corrupt and still very much in my sin nature, but Jesus paid the price and everyday is a new day. A new day to die to myself, to pick up the cross and to follow Him, the one who paid it all.”
We are all very much works in progress, but I see that Jesus had done a miraculous work in me and I’m excited to see 10 more years down the road. Will I look back at THIS blog and shake my head and think, “Oh, you of little faith?!”
I don’t know, really, but the path of righteousness is narrow and harder to tread than the broad one I was walking not so very long ago.
Will you hold my hand, LORD, so I DON’T veer off the path?