Thursday, December 31, 2015

New Years Eve

It seems New Years Eve is a time of reflection and in all honesty reflection is sometimes hard.

2015 was a year of growth and while that is good, it's often painful. And it was.

26 years ago I met my ex husband and had our 1st date. It's a stretch of my mind to think about the person I was then in comparison to who I am now. The friends I no longer have, the life I now have and share with my 3 beautiful children. I wouldn't go backwards for anything in the world, no matter how badly I would have wanted to avoid the pain. Just like the Garth Brooks song The Dance.

I can only press onward and upward into 2016.

Hold on to me Lord and let's get this party started.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Merry Christmas Eve

Good morning it's Christmas Eve!

The house is so quiet and the sun is pouring through my little window making it a beautiful golden color. I crave coffee but am afraid of losing the silence to it. So I wait.

This year I asked for a list of wants. I bought off that list. I have also decided memories were more important than material things so I we will be taking small trips and experiencing life.

My kids and I are so blessed. We have struggles that feel like mountains, and probably look like mole hills, but we face them dry our tears and go on by the grace of God.

Yesterday we celebrated the Stacey Christmas at my sisters house. I dreaded it so badly that I was sick the entire day before and had demon nightmares the night before. I associate her with some of the people who have hurt me he worst in my life and in each of those situations she sought out their friendship. It's a deep hurt. It's one that I have left to God and tried to close the door on. But this one day I have to put my heart and hurt aside and go.

I did.

When I came home, it was just as I expected, Sophie's biological grandparents who my sister is so close with had ironically in the couple hours we were gone left gifts for Sophie. While many would see this as no big deal, it is a molehill-ish mountain to me. I know in my heart that they had to have known when we would not be here and come then.

I do not believe in the gifting once a year from people like them. I believe they are welcome in her life as a permanent fixture but not as a swinging door and they don't see it that way. My heart hurt and still burns.

It was a short time later when my cousin Michael came over, his talk with me was God sent. I cried, he cried. God knew I needed a physical being and He sent me Michael. Now Michael didn't sit and say all kinds of warm fuzzies but he showered me with a reminder of Gods promises. God works in mysterious ways and I am always in awe of His ways.

Many see this as HIS holiday, however I see everyday as HIS day! We are blessed my friends we are blessed.

Merry Christmas,
Much love me.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Christmas Festivities begin

The right to choose. I guess we all have that right. We can choose to eat this or that and to go here or there, drugs, another donut, coffee at 10 pm? The choices we make on an average day are daunting. We make choices even when we don't physically consider it actually being a choice.

Tomorrow starts our holiday festivities for the kids and I. I chose to host again for the Stacey family. Wasn't an easy choice but I put aside my hesitation and said yes, again. But my mom is choosing again to not come, and my sister is as well.

That is hurtful when I will have to answer for them as to where they are. I want to say they're ....., but I won't. I will try to focus on the pure, the good the ways of God. I will try to be the hostess that He wants me to be and use the gifts HE has blessed me with to host this shindig.

Then I will put away my hurt that has been caused by my mom and my sister and take my family to her house for our family (descriptive only) Christmas. I will rise above the hurt and do this because God said I have got this Val and I have nothing else to do but trust Him.

Philippians reminds me I can do this. So I will cling to God and do it.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Thinking of Mary...

To think of Mary as a girl, a woman, like me. Seems hard to do, but I have to put her in context to be able to understand how HE looks at my life and the “struggles” I face.

Here she was Mary, a woman, who was waiting to be married. Joseph and her were counting down the days and the smiles I’m sure that her face and heart wore were never ending.  The dreams that she was building and the ideas of how their lives would be all coming true soon…and then the visit from the Angel.

“It’s you” (in the simplest of terms), “you will bring the messiah”. Her whole world had to have stopped. She is a virgin and who would ever believe her. Her parents? Joseph? Yes, Joseph was concerned. But then he received the word too. 

There was no hesitation in her willingness to be the mother of our Savior. None. She knew, because she was told, “The Lord has found FAVOR with you.”

We live our lives in hopes of having God say at the end, “well done”, she got it from the get go. How amazing to have that confirmation that everything you are going to endure and live through, see and experience…God’s got it.

Why do I find this so hard to fathom? God’s word says I’m chosen, I’m HIS, I’m favored, I am to inherit the Kingdom of God.  So why do I have hesitation? Why do I think when things go crazy or out of sort that God has somehow lifted his finger off of me and chaos has ensued? I have to remind myself that everything I am going to endure today, live through today, see and experience…God’s got it!

ALL OF IT!!! Those times in my life when I worry about the broken dreams and worry about the hurt, and the journey I’m on if I have the strength to do this day, to do this life, to mother these kids…God’s got it! Truly accepting this truth for my life is accepting Amazing Grace.

Thank you Lord for loving me in such a way, and forgive me for forgetting you got this!

Much love, me.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Prayers for Johnny

Tonight as every night something always wakes me around 2 am. It use to be Sophie but she now has moved to 3 am. The joys of motherhood, never sleeping a full night. When I couldn't sleep I grabbed my phone to try to browse Facebook.

I follow a family who has a child dying of cancer. He is a twin and the story is absolutely heartbreaking. The post have shown the most amazing journey of this little guys faith, and the mom as heart ache. My heart is torn with every word this mother writes because as a mom you feel her pain.

Tonight's post told of Johnny knowing the end is near and knowing he will be leaving his family and missing them and the mother watching as the only waking hour her son having was filled with the fear of dying.

I type this post at 3:17 am beside my Christmas tree, with 3 healthy kids down the hall. I am a single mom and most days are hard and I complain a lot about the job I've been given from God and how know im blessed but can't figure out how to keep everyone in sync. I worry about money, about raising good children, about making sure they are well rounded kids, about the last effects of the divorce on them, a million things. But we are healthy. Today in all I did I didn't deal with my kids being fearful.

Lord my heart is crushed with the pain this momma is feeling. I'm here on her behalf and Johnny's too asking for 10,000 angels to hold his hand and hers. Asking for the fear to be released and for the momma to find a peace that allows You to hold her. I can't imagine.

My heart breaks for them. But YOU know the pain that she feels. You watched Your son be sacrificed for the sins of all of us. Father reach down to her tonight. And Lord may we rejoice these next few weeks not in gifts but in the life You have given us.

Much love, me

Monday, December 14, 2015

Mothering

Good evening...I'm sitting by the light of the tree with my healthy, very loud very active children all around.  Children who push you to the brink of "crazy-ville"!

During this time of year when I write my Christmas cards I get gushy w what my friends mean to me. I have ended up with a group of Christan women who have walked similar paths as mine. When one of us is down the other lifts and encourages. It's what you do. It's what God says to do so you do it.

So tonight my heart is with the momma with sick children who is beyond exhausted and has cleaned up puke more times than she cares to remember. For the mom who is craving quiet and knows bedtime is far away. For the mom who wonders how...and when the break will come. For the mom who works at one job and then comes home to raise her children as her 2nd job. While the catchy thought of motherhood is priceless and lovely...fails to live my kind of life...life here is messy, busy, noisy, dirty, and exhausting beyond everything else...but I believe this is Gods desire for my today and my tonight. So I do it and I thank God for the strength that I can do it.

Till we meet again...

Me

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

3:45 AM Confessional

This has been the longest weekend...

I am not sure where I could have imagined myself other than here at 3:45 AM but sitting in front of this tiny screen typing my heart out trying to figure out how I got to this place in my life.

Being a single mom is the hardest thing in the world to handle. I believe it is something that can be accomplished with grace and poise but to do so one must be willing to hide everything, everything under the covers.

During this journey through "troubled waters" as the bible calls it, I have had a history of pushing back and eliminating all those who hurt me. I use to imagine it as a crossing out of such when I was younger. I have positioned myself to mentally eliminate those who hurt me so that I don't revisit that painful time.

But what do you do when those who hurt you happen to be your own flesh and blood. When they, without meaning, say something that rocks you to the core. That sends you to the couch for the rest of the day and mentally has put you in a place of sadness.

Is that how she sees me? Is that how I am to her? Does she see my balance and my deciding factors depending on that piece of the puzzle? Probably not, and I'm most assuredly just an emotional mess. Hormonal menopausal hell is tricky. Trying to figure out how to navigate it is a game that right now I'm not in control of and that my friend isn't good.

So I sit here, head pounding from hours of crying wide eyed at this insane hour, thinking I want a cup of coffee (not going there). I never imagined myself at 42 years old trying to find someone to date, trying to validate my feelings of needing to be accepted. I just didn't think that was in my future. But it was. I spend much of my time raising kids and telling myself that I am ok, that online dating is acceptable, and honestly saying day after day, "I know it's today", only to once again have yet another 24 hours of nope it's not maybe tomorrow thinking.

Oh the garbage of "quit looking" it will happen flows from everyone, or the infamous raise your kids and then find someone. That's is all really great advice, from someone who didn't raise their kids as a single mom. Who spent their days loved by their husband.

Everyone needs affirmation, everyone needs to feel that they are loved. Oh yes the "you must love yourself first" garbage. Yes. I love myself. I don't like who I can be pushed to become at times no. But when a 2 year old stands screaming like a banshee for 5 minutes, you are pushed to the point of wanting to run screaming down the road or having to handle it and handling it, sometimes isn't pretty. Hell, mothering isn't pretty I have been in my pj's for well over 24 hours now.

So about an hour ago a thought popped up. What would I change in this life to make things more able to be tolerated and lived different...there is very little to be honest (which is quite surprising to me).

1. I think all the work that being a single mom takes, is daunting and without some kind of balance of work and play (to use a simple word) will destroy a perosn. I spend my days with my children and my neighbor Patti. Patti is a widow of close to 75 years old. While there is wisdom in her, she is a woman who is waiting to die so that she can see her husband again. She feels her days have no meaning, and it is a very sad situation. I love Patti and my children do as well. But I need to be around more people who have a positive spin on this harsh life. I need words of affirmation and encouragment, and a locker room pep talk, the kind that leaves you sparing in the hallway before a boxing match. Especially now. More than ever now.

2. The time I spend on social media needs to be cut down. It's easy to get caught up on the day to day of the internet world. But that is a cold and lonely world. There's no personal touch. No hugs, no pat on the backs, etc...You can be a hit on fb for a day, but you are still on the couch in your jammies in a house with no one to physically touch.

I see changes in my life soon and while some changes require diligence and patience I know it won't be easy. But I am anxious to smile again. To find me again, to love me again. Alone or not.

Love me.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

A visit from...me


I love to journal, blogging well has taken a backseat as of recent. But I do and I journal everywhere. It’s an escape. It’s a therapy session of such.

Today I stumbled upon one of my notebooks where I journaled. 2 years ago I journaled, the same situations with the same thorns as I feel today, still.

It along with other things brought back hurt. It took my breath, making me thing back where I was and ….

I don’t share many things one on one with nearly anyone. I have best friends, but I’m VERY guarded. Very.

No one knows the whole story. No one.

So when I hurt because of some of the reason’s I’m so guarded, I just deal with it. When I look in the mirror, I see the girl with the broken heart, red eyed. I recall so many things in my past that make me stumble and say wait a minute. But I kept quiet and let them rave, I kept to myself and walked away. Not because I didn’t have a response but because they aren’t worth it.

Family. Funny word I think. Something I feel I’ve outgrown. I’ve outgrown and stepped into the world of reality. Where just because we share the same blood doesn’t mean we share the same life. Family. They are the ones who dig the knife in the deepest. Who twist it with a vengeance. Who intend for it to hurt and laugh while doing it. They will reap what they sow and I will pray for them all along the way, begging God to help them because I HOPE “they know not what they are doing”. I hope.

And as I pray, I will not allow myself to be there with them. Not at a holiday or celebration. I will not. I cannot. 

I’m not the things they say. I’m a person. I’m a good person. I’m a child of God. Chosen. Not whole anymore, but broken, but still a person. And while I am alone, God has not left me. Somehow HE promises I will be okay. That I HOPE, as well.

I know my journey, I know what hurt me, I know how much I am responsible for and I own that. I also know that God is here with me and with all my tears and questions, doubts, and fist pounding anger HE doesn’t shake HIS head at me. HE isn’t ashamed of me. 

When we can’t find Sophie’s shoes, HE doesn’t say why don’t you get it together?
When I have 50 tons of laundry, HE doesn’t say “you have got to be kidding me!”
When I just need another set of hands, HE doesn’t say “why can’t you do this on your own?”
When I struggle with life, HE doesn’t say “raise your own kids and get off you’re a!@!”
When I just need to share something with someone, HE doesn’t say “I have no idea what you are talking about”. 

See HE isn’t, HE IS... my everything.

I don’t know what has me where I am, I don’t know why I can’t have the hurts be amnesia’ed out of my life so that I can just survive this part without continuing to hurt. But I am here.

I thought recently about the past few years. I had a time when I didn’t have any dreams (some days I’m still there, pain will do that to you, it numbs you). Then my life took a good turn (or so I thought), months later dreams smashed. I still find myself wondering what are my dreams, what am I destined for? Am I ever going to make it out of survival mode? I want my smile back, I want to breathe again, I want to say, believe and know that I’m good. Will I make it? God says have faith. Even as small as a mustard seed. 

Somehow I will make it. I will be ok. I will be blessed with the Lord’s Favor far beyond those critics imagination, all because “the Lord has anointed me” Isaiah 61 reminds me of HIS promise and I cling, sometimes by my fingernails but I cling.

Much love, me.