Divorce

Slow Cooking At High Speed

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

giphy-2.gif

“Life Comes At You Fast.”

 

This was the key phrase in a Nationwide Insurance advertising campaign that first debuted in the mid-2000s. The messaging was intended to remind the viewer that you just never know what is around the corner in this life, so be prepared with a great insurance company. (One of my favorites in this campaign is this one featuring MC Hammer and his 15 minutes of fame.)

 

The commercial that had a bigger impact on me was this one, where Dad is pushing his little boy in the tree swing, only to have his son transform instantly into a teenager. He crashes into Dad, knocking him down, and the tag line “Life Comes At You Fast” appears on the screen. When this commercial came out, I was the father of a four-year-old and a one-year-old. My youngest son hadn’t even been born yet. This commercial was a great reminder of how fast life flies by, before you know it, your children are adults. On the first day of the school year, Hope posted about the special season that we are in. She wrote: “I can sense that we have crossed a significant bridge and things have hit a new speed from here on out.”

 

It hit me that we have entered the latter phases of the season that we talked about and prayed about when we were dating and first married. Thanks to some great advice from some blended family experts, we’ve always viewed the process of blending our family together like slow cooking in a crock pot. This has been our mantra from the time that Hope and I realized that we were heading toward marriage. Many blended families, if not the majority, make the mistake of putting their families in a pressure cooker and trying to force everything to happen. When that is the mindset, there isn’t time for anyone to adjust, they’re just supposed to accept how things are and do the best they can to make it work. The slow-cooking mindset allows for failure, forgiveness, recovery, and redirection. One of the things that we constantly reminded ourselves early on is that it normally takes 5-7 years after remarriage for the family unit to find that “new normal.”

 

Somehow, we are already smack in the middle of that time period. In May of next year, we will have been married for 7 years. About a month after our anniversary, my oldest son will be graduating high school. Life will change quite a bit, but not as much as it changed for us in the couple of years leading up to our marriage. That provides a sense of peace as life continues at this breakneck speed. When my first marriage ended, I was faced with the reality that my sons were going to spend half of their boyhood and teen years with their mom and away from me, further accelerating the speed at which life passes. Half the time, twice the speed.

 

In my younger years, a mistake that I made quite often was trying to force things to happen before it was time. That caused quite a bit of heartache and frustration for me, and also caused me to point fingers at other people instead of looking inside of myself. When Hope and I married, I knew without a doubt that if I reverted back to that mindset and tried to force our family into this new normal before it was time, I would end up exactly where I did before. There was too much at stake for all of us for that to happen. We had to figure out how to slow cook at high speed. It seems to make no sense at all that the way to make all of this work is to cook slowly, when everything is moving so fast. But that is the only way to make it work. Letting go. Praying. Forgiving. Learning. And letting go some more, because life comes at you fast.

Begin (Again) With The End In Mind

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Start

Posted by Dave

Hope and I work together, and most days we commute together, which provides an additional time together that we normally wouldn’t have if we worked at separate organizations. Many times, we’ll fill this time talking about recent happenings in our family or discussing the day at work. Recently during our commute, we listened to a message on YouTube that spoke directly into the way that you make a successful marriage. The message was by Lisa Bevere, and it is called “Begin With The End In Mind”.

If you’re married, or if you’re in a relationship that is leading toward marriage, this is a message that you must take the time to listen to. It speaks directly into a mindset that is critical for any successful marriage. Success in a marriage means that the phrase “til death do us part” is actually how your marriage ends. If you look toward the end of your marriage and how you want to go out together, it makes many of the things you deal with on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis less intimidating and frustrating.

But what if you’ve already had a failed attempt (or multiple failed attempts) at marriage? How do you begin again with the end in mind when it didn’t end well before? Trust me, entering into it a second time was a scary proposition for both Hope and myself. All of the questions circle in your mind like “will I ever trust again?”, “after last time, can I ever commit again?”, “what if the broken things inside of me cause it to happen again?”. Fear can drive you to ask some crazy questions, but fear can also drive you to ask some very valid questions. Fear can’t be what brings you to the answer, but it can motivate some much-needed prayer and discussion with your prospective partner.

My advice? Talk about those fears together before doing anything. Talk about your expectations before doing anything. If you’re going into a re-marriage, take some time to look back at the failure of previous relationships and look for things that YOU did to cause it, because unless those things are fixed, they will doom this one too. No topic is too small during this time. I’m talking about everything from who is going to pay the bills to who is going to do specific household chores. Leave no stone unturned. For example, I do the laundry in our house. For some reason, I believe laundry is my calling, maybe it is because of my last name. Believe it or not, Hope and I discussed this before we got married. We talked about numerous other items, many of them much more important, during our dating and pre-marital counseling. Beware, it’s easy to overlook the End when you’re in the midst of the “warm fuzzies” of dating. Everything is new, you can’t get enough time together, you text or call each other constantly. Marriage seems like a great idea, because you’re having so much fun being together. Don’t let the “warm fuzzies” fool you into overlooking the seemingly minor things that will make sure your marriage stands the test of time. Imagine yourselves becoming old and gray together. Do you honestly see yourself wanting to grow old with that person? Imagine you get a diagnosis that is terminal. Is that person going to stand by your side as you fight that battle? If you can’t envision the End and see your partner with you, then it might be time to reconsider.

If you’re going to make it to the End, the Beginning has to be full of clear communication about what it is going to take to get there. You and your partner have to be on the same page. Your dreams and goals for your relationship and for your family have to align. Spend some time dreaming about what it will look like as the years go by. If you do, it will go along way toward making sure that you both make it there together.

The End

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Rocky

Posted By Dave

“How did I end up here?” was the question that the voice in my head kept asking. I came home from work to see only my clothes and open space where some of the furniture used to be. Sadness, anger, frustration, it all washed over me. I was like a fighter who had taken a right hook that I didn’t have a chance to brace for. As I crumbled to the canvas, I was pissed and hurt. How does 13 years of marriage, three children and a home together, a life built together, end up here? Sometimes there just isn’t an explanation. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers. Sometimes bad stuff happens to people who tried to do everything right. It doesn’t make any sense.

After the separation began, my boys would go spend the agreed-upon days with their mom. Instantly, a house that was full of the sounds and activity of a young family was as quiet as a funeral home. Appropriately, I felt like I was dying inside. Toys left where they were played with last. Their clothes in the laundry, Capri-Suns in the refrigerator. The TV left on the last channel they watched, the baseball laying in the front yard. I couldn’t wait to talk to them, but despised having to tell them “Good Night” over the phone. I missed them so bad, I felt like someone was using a vacuum to suck the life out of me. I would lay there in bed and be enveloped in the silence. It made me sick to my stomach. It was in those times that I began to experience the love of my heavenly Father like I never had before. I have been a Christian since 1997, yet I discovered during those lonely nights that my faith had never been tested like this. I began to beg God to make His presence known, I was having a real crisis of faith, wondering if all of the stuff I had said about Jesus through the years was really true or if I was just repeating what everyone else was saying.

I know now that it is all true. I can’t explain it in words so that anyone else would understand. I just know because I’ve sensed the presense of my Savior in times when I just wanted to curl up in a ball in the floor. I know because I was broken down and stripped of everything that I held dear, and yet still knew that there was a reason for it. I know because He waited for me to ask Him for forgiveness before He began to reveal His new plan for me. I don’t ask “why?” anymore. That’s because I know the answer. It wasn’t so I could start over. It wasn’t so I could get answers to all of my questions. I’ve learned over time that the specifics don’t matter. Who did what, who said what, who was wrong and who was right, none of it matters. I spent plenty of time being self-righteous about my circumstances, and it still left me empty. The reason I don’t ask why anymore is because every day I live this life completely differently than I did prior to the day my first marriage ended. It is encompassed in this quote from author Ken Gire:

“When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn’t put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project – a mosaic that tells the story of redemption.”

The End was The Beginning for me. I made the choice to get up off of the canvas, spit the blood out of my mouth and get back in the fight. The fight for me was to figure out what I did to cause what happened and fix it. I went to counseling for months to open up those places that were in the shadows and bring them into the light. The fight for me was to lead my sons through a traumatic situation. I could not leave them behind as I jumped back in the ring, I had no choice but to be a healthy Dad for them. I fight for them every day, even when they aren’t with me. Someday they are going to have to fight too. It is my job to be their Mickey, to prepare them for the day they are going to step into the ring. Now the fight for me involves my young marriage to a woman who is my Adrian. I refuse to let my past or my enemy win, and that means fighting for what is good and right. Even though my greatest fears were realized, they were also defeated the moment that stopped trying to control what wasn’t mine begin with. Freedom and power are my assets thanks to Who I serve, not who I am.

It all began the day that it ended.

Step By Step

/ Hope and Dave / 2 Comments

footprints-in-the-snow

Posted By Hope

It begins with one step. One foot in front of the other. This is what it felt like to start over.

After ten years of marriage, I found myself unpacking in a tiny one bedroom apartment in Charlotte. Not in the nice part of town, but not exactly in the bad part. I used up every bit of fight I had left as I unloaded the trailer with the last of my furniture. The drive out of my old neighborhood was a mixture of loss and hope. As I opened the door of my new place to begin moving all that was left to begin again, I began to run out of strength. It was the last half load that was the hardest. I remember carrying in a box that was heavy and as I carried it through my living room and out onto the patio storage, I began to cry and felt like I couldn’t make one more trip out. As the tears began to fall, I stopped in the doorway and couldn’t fight them anymore. I felt a small whisper tell me to keep going. He said, “Just take one step at a time. Just one step Hope. One step gives way to another and you make your way to that last box.” I made my way through the living room and out to the trailer and picked up more and carried on slowly and with tears. With that last box, I depleted the reserve tank and collapsed into a spent, crying mess. As I sat there recovering on my couch, I realized that I had kept going for another hour, with the strength from one step at a time.

That wasn’t the last time He gave me rest in that concept. There were moments of such loneliness and rejection when I felt so completely lost in my divorce that I questioned if He even remembered me. I cried so often and for so long that it felt like I would always be sad. That the idea of life turning over a new leaf or that cloud having a silver lining was not for me because I had sinned by going through a divorce. For me, the hope of full joy did not apply any longer. That season ended. Thankfully that was not the case. I just needed time. What He taught me in that place was that we prepare for what is next, in the now. He carefully showed me the concept of one step at a time. I didn’t have the strength for more than that during my broken season, so I listened. As I began to heal, I saw that the concept applies to every season. Even when it’s good.

As I face the challenge of doing life as an awkward semi-quasi-partial parent, I apply this principle often. When I get selfish, when I get rejected, when I am overwhelmed and when I just plain don’t want to do this anymore. In my planning, in my waiting, in my hope and in my fear, I recognize that all I have light for is the step I am currently taking. Living like this means that I have no idea where the journey will take me, but I know from experience that I’m not alone and the destination isn’t the part that matters.

Liberating The Patterns

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Posted by Dave

crochet-ripple-pattern

When I was a kid, I remember watching my mom crochet different things like blankets and pot holders. Although being a boy kept me from ever wanting to crochet anything on my own, I remember being amazed at how these different spools of yarn could turn into a big blanket or a coaster for the coffee table. The different colors of yarn formed a pattern that held the final product together.

During January, we’ve been in a sermon series about the patterns in our lives. This series has focused on how the patterns in our lives play out on a day-to-day basis. We’ve been studying how the growth and implementation of our faith determines the patterns that are displayed as a result.

This got me thinking about the patterns in my life, and in my own family. This is something that I’m very passionate about, as I believe the lives we live are determined by the patterns we were taught during our upbringing (both good and bad), and by the patterns we learn as we experience life itself (both good and bad). For example, a daughter grows up with a father who doesn’t know how to love her and never shows love to her. She grows up not understanding affection from a man, and then spends the rest of her life seeking this love from other men in an unhealthy way. A son grows up with a mother who criticizes him and never approves of what he does. He grows up feeling like he’s never good enough, then spends the rest of his life trying to gain approval from women in an unhealthy way. And so on. On the flip side, the positive things from a child’s upbringing have a postive impact on their lives.

With enough self-reflection, the patterns in our lives become evident. What about your marriage, divorce, family, or step-family? Can you see any patterns in those? Being sensitive to the patterns in a traditional family are important enough. Some of those patterns are born into a traditional family, there is a genetic pattern that cannot be broken. In a blended family, you’re trying to patch a family together without the genetic bond that is present in a traditional family. Identifying these patterns can make or break the well-being of your family. If you’re in the middle of a season that has you wondering if that “patch” is going to hold up, just give it some time. Patterns aren’t completed or determined overnight. As our pastor said recently, “you hear me preach for 45 minutes and expect to undo 45 years of bad patterns in your life? It doesn’t work that way.”

The challenge then becomes taking the time to look objectively at the patterns in your life. Do I have enough time or energy to change what I see? Is it worth the effort that it will take? It’s just like exercise. You have to start somewhere. There is no quick fix to fixing the negative patterns in your life or family. There’s no pill to take. There’s no 30 day diet that will give you that supermodel body. It will take work, and lots of hard work, to turn the tide. What’s the alternative? Pretending that everything is fine, and that you don’t need to examine the fine print. If that is your choice, not only do you miss out on the opportunity to change the negative patterns in your life, you also miss out on seeing the positive patterns in your life. Don’t let the fear of seeing things you don’t want to see keep you from seeing things that you need to see.

As you look at the patterns in your family, try to steer away from blanket statements, generalities, or decisions instead of taking each individual person into account. This doesn’t mean that one individual is more important than any other in the family. The pattern of the family is set by the individual patterns. To change the patterns in the family, it begins with transforming individual patterns. It would be much easier to make one decision or change of direction that would affect everyone the same. Because we’re created with individual temperaments, personalities and needs, it just isn’t that simple. One person’s positive or negative patterns can affect the entire family. Take a family of four with an alcoholic father who is abusive when he drinks. The patterns of the other three people in the family will be affected. Mom will either become codependent (where one person supports or enables another person’s addictions or irresponsibility) or she will reject Dad’s behavior, causing major conflict between the two of them. Whichever direction she goes will determine the patterns of the lives of the children. This is exactly why so many problems in families are generational, because these patterns show up very early in our lives. If they aren’t confronted and dealt with, you have teenagers and then young adults repeating the same mistakes. Then they carry those patterns into their relationships and marriages, producing children who will carry them as well. And on and on it goes. Dad’s alcoholism and how it manifests itself in the family has determined the pattern, and it has affected everyone. Mom can stand up and say “we’re going to change the pattern of this family” and try to stem the tide of how everything is affecting the children, but until Dad makes a choice to change, the pattern will always be there. This is why you have to look at each individual in the family when looking at the patterns of the whole family.

When Hope and I decided to get married, we had an expectation that it would take plenty of time for our family to be “crocheted” together. In a step/blended family situation, the tendency is to try to put it all together overnight. That puts so much pressure on the individuals in the family that no patterns have time to emerge. Everyone is simply reacting or trying to keep the peace. Our approach hasn’t changed from Day 1, and now we’re starting to experience the fruit from this patience. This doesn’t mean that we’re without conflict and that everything is smooth sailing. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have tough days ahead, especially as our three sons transform into those monsters known as teenagers. What it means is that instead of reacting only to situations and circumstances, you go further into what is happening. Is there a deeper pattern as to why this happened? Does that pattern need to be changed for the family to be healthy? You have to allow the tapestry to be woven slowly as everyone adjusts.

Take a look at your life and your family today and see if you can identify the patterns. Look for the good ones and the bad ones. Look for the ones that you want to change. It might be as simple as changing your diet & exercise plan, or choosing to stop watching or listening to things that are preventing growth in your life. Or it could be as big as making the choice to not be an addict anymore. If your marriage is going well, or going not-so-well, know that it isn’t circumstances that have caused that. It’s the patterns. Sew the good ones into the pattern of your life and tear out the bad ones. Then wait for the change to happen.

Two Christmases

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Two Christmases

Posted by Dave

If you’re divorced with children like me, it is likely you have a separation or custody agreement that tells you when your kids will be with you and when they won’t. My copy of this legal paperwork also spells out what will happen with the children on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For me, these holidays rotate. On the years I have them for Thanksgiving, they are with their mother for Christmas. I had them for Thanksgiving this year, which means that we will spend this Christmas without the boys.

This is year #4 for my boys having “Two Christmases”. It is a constant reminder that our family isn’t like it used to be, and that we’ve had to make adjustments to how we celebrate the holidays. It is a constant reminder that we aren’t a “traditional” family. Because my parents divorced, I remember what it felt like to have a Christmas with my Dad, and a Christmas with my Mom. Even though this is becoming normal for our family, I must admit that on the Christmases that the boys aren’t with us, they are missed terribly. A traditional Christmas is all about the kids, from the myth of Santa, to stockings, to waking up early to unwrap presents, to playing with new toys. Nearly every Christmas movie you watch has some element of Christmas that focuses on children.

If you are spending Christmas without your children due to divorce, I’m here to tell you that if you let it, it will send you into a tailspin. You’ll start to feel emptiness, regret, and you’ll be miserable this Christmas. You’ll get angry at the “other” house or your ex-spouse, and you’ll be jealous that they get to spend Christmas with the kids. Not a great way to spend the Christmas holiday, is it?

I’m not an expert on the subject, but I want to encourage anyone who is going through this during the Christmas season. There have been some things that we’ve done in our home to adjust, and to make Christmas special even when it isn’t our year to have the children on December 25th. On the years we don’t have the boys for Christmas, we always have to plan our family Christmas for another time. Depending on where Christmas falls, we will usually do this the weekend before or after December 25th. We work hard to make sure that this day feels special to them, even though it may not be December 25th when we give our gifts. We build the anticipation. We make it exciting. This year, my mother- and father-in-law got into the act, and made a huge deal out of “our Christmas”, which happened to be on December 20th this year. That really made it feel like a special day to us and to the boys. It really is important to start some new traditions like this to make sure your children understand that you will continue make this time of year special for them. If you try hard enough, you’ll be able to identify ways to do this in your situation.

On the bigger picture, there are some other perspective adjustments that you can make to help you if you share your children with another home for Christmas. First of all, don’t get into a competition when it comes to buying gifts. Don’t go into debt to try to outdo their other parent. Trust me, the kids will pick up on that, and eventually could start to use it against you. Also, if the other home is able to buy more expensive gifts than you, the worst thing you can do is dump this on your children. Saying things like “well, it must be nice for them to afford that”, or “if I wasn’t paying them all this child support or alimony, I could buy you that too” is a sure-fire way to make your children feel guilty about the gifts they get from the other house. It is a sure-fire way to make sure that when they’re older and are able to choose who to come visit on Christmas, it will be with reluctance that they choose you. The bottom line is that no matter the circumstances, no matter how painful it is, you must get above it and be happy for your children for the Christmas that they have in the other house.

Another thing that may help is to remember that there are plenty of families this Christmas who would give anything just to hear their child’s voice this Christmas. You may have to wish your kids a Merry Christmas over the phone, but some parents aren’t able to wish their children Merry Christmas at all because they’ve passed away. Remembering this will help you cherish that phone call on Christmas day, and will help you maintain a perspective that keeps you thankful and grateful for what you do have, even if it isn’t “traditional” or “normal”.

Lastly, we don’t make it a secret on this blog about our belief in Jesus Christ. If you read the Bible, you see that Christmas itself is about a child who came to earth as a baby. That same baby grew into a man, and ultimately died on a cross, separated from His Father. Keeping this in mind reminds you that your Heavenly Father knows how you feel. He knows what it is like to let go of His child. If you have to let go of your children this Christmas, do it with the understanding that the One who created you had to let go too. Just as with Jesus and His Father, the hope of Christmas is wrapped in reconciliation. Keep that hope alive this Christmas for your children, no matter the situation.

When Your World Falls Apart

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Posted by Dave

2014-10-03 04.25.56The subject nature of this blog is remarriage and blended families. At its core, getting married again and shaping your new family has happened because of a divorce. No matter when or how it happens, divorce hurts. Even when good comes from a divorce, there are lifelong implications. Anyone involved in a divorce as a spouse or as a child (I’ve experienced it both ways) will be the first to acknowledge this. It never really goes away, however, it can be a turning point to a better future. The key to a successful remarriage is learning the things about yourself that caused the previous divorce, and learning how to deal with the pain that resulted. I want to share a resource with you that helped me do just that.

The response to Hope’s first post, along with a discussion that I experienced at a men’s small group this past week, have led me to go back to this most painful period of my life. Hope knows this well, I go back there a lot. Not in an unhealthy way, mind you. Not with regret, shame or guilt. I go back there to remind myself of what happened to a broken man, a man who needed to be broken to experience the things that were in store for him. If this is you, and at this moment you are feeling that pit of emptiness in your stomach, let me encourage you. Life is not over.

Allow me to quickly set the stage for you as a way to direct you to this resource that changed my life. My first wife informed me that she was done with our marriage and that she was moving out. Obviously, that statement doesn’t even come close to describing what led to this. As we all well know, it didn’t get to that point overnight. Regardless, I began walking through those very painful first days of separation, watching as my three sons (ages 3, 6, & 9 at the time) dealt with this in their own ways. Complicating matters is that I was in full-time ministry at the time, serving as the Associate Pastor at our church. The Senior Pastor felt the best thing was for me to stand in front of the congregation and explain what was going on. That Sunday is forever engrained into my memory. It was one of the most difficult days of my life as I looked out toward an auditorium of people, and spoke words that I never thought I would have to speak. Little did I know that my heavenly Father was getting ready to begin transforming my life.

Several days after this, opened my laptop to check my email, and received one of those e-blast emails that Christian booksellers use to advertise their latest deals. Normally, I deleted those emails before I even read them. The subject line of this one wouldn’t allow me to delete it. The title of the book was “When Your World Falls Apart” by David Jeremiah. The book is about how he dealt with his cancer diagnosis and treatment. I immediately clicked the link and bought the book. Inside those pages was some truth that was going to change the direction of my life.

In the coming months, I read this book twice. Once wasn’t enough. I can honestly say that besides the Bible, this book was one of the keys to helping me redirect the focus of my life. Here are a couple of excerpts:

“You find yourself in a crisis with no immediate resolution. You know this thing isn’t going away. You know that when you wake up tomorrow morning, and the morning after that, this matter will leap to the forefront of your mind as soon as you wipe the sleep from your eyes. Some problem has risen up like a great tidal wave from the depths, and it dominates your landscape. But if you’re like David, there is something behind that wave – or perhaps it is between you and the wave – and that thing is called hope.”

“Genuine praise, offered stubbornly in the face of adversity, makes no sense by any worldly calculation. That’s fine. There are deeper truths that don’t ‘make sense’ on the surface of things. God’s rules fly in the face of our logic. When we begin to praise God, not in response to prosperity, but in defiance to misfortune, we align ourselves with the deepest truths of the universe, the place where God dispenses deep wisdom and spiritual maturity. We unleash His victorious power in the world of pain and suffering. We create the environment where miracles occur.”

Since then, the book has been re-branded and reprinted. It is now called A Bend In The Road, which you will find is appropriate once you read the book. When people ask me how I made it through those days, I never recount it without mentioning this book and what was on those pages.

Maybe you are facing a separation or divorce. You’ve lost hope, you can’t see how life is going to go on from here. Don’t waste what God wants to do in your life through this period of time. Know that while there is plenty of finger-pointing going on and plenty of blame to go around, there is something inside of you that God wants to change. Go to counseling. Remove people from your life who bring negativity and feed into your pity. Learn to forgive. Learn to ask God to forgive you for the things you did to cause it, because no one is blameless. Spend $15 and buy this book. Read it and mark it up like I did. Put dates on the pages to remind you later of where you were when you read something that impacted you. In preparation for this post, I pulled my tattered copy off of the shelf. I looked at the dates and notes, and immediately, I was back “there”. Only now “there” means something much more to me than it did then.

Armed and Unashamed

/ Hope and Dave / 4 Comments

Posted by Hope

In a world where social media has fed the narcissism in all of us, there has also been a good use for it. Today’s technology allows us various ways to watch the best and the worst of families play out. What used to go on behind closed doors, is now displayed for all to judge on a daily basis. Oh my, how times have changed.

Three years ago, my life spiraled out of control. I suffered the devastating blow of separation and began the journey of divorce. Now, I am remarried and find myself a quasi-parent to three young men. In the time that has passed, I have felt the worst pain and the greatest joy of my life. Yet, I sense, some of the biggest hurt is yet to come.

Those of us in the Bible Belt learn how to manage life in the midst of that pain. We breathe deep, pray, read scripture and surround ourselves with friends who remind us to keep marching. But within all of us there exists a story of deep heartache. Sometimes that hurt has a life altering cost. In my battle with infertility, I have heard stories of unimaginable pain. Now, in the beginning stages of blending a family, I am reminded of the gut wrenching loss that families are walking through.

Psalm 34:4

This past weekend, I attended a step-mom conference to receive counsel on how to set myself up for success and create proper expectations for this role. This is my responsibility because adults make decisions that children are powerless to change. I want to be what they need for me to be to heal from their own pain and grow to trust again. As I listened to the speaker tell about how this conference came about, she said something that shocked me to my core. She said that she approached multiple church leaders about promoting this event in their church. Time after time she was met with the same response. Church leaders felt that by promoting this event about step families, it would cause confusion in the message they send to their congregation. Before I go off on that, let me say, I get that. So, to spare that soap box, I’ll ask this, what about those that had no choice? What about the kids? Adults made the decisions, adults suffered the consequences, but what about the children?

I will always carry the scarlet letter on my chest and in my psyche about the stigma that comes with being divorced. Working in ministry, I can’t escape that any day of the week. The Lord has taught me where to place my identity and I stand firm in the forgiveness and redemption that He extends me yet. I can deal with the rejection. But for my three step sons, it’s harder for them. She stated that children are two years behind adults in processing trauma. They are children, processing very adult issues. What do we do as a society to address their questions, hurts and fears?

Dave and I discovered a ministry that exists to help families walk the road of healing and blending which has been a life-line for us. I have been hesitant to post anything about this because, well, I know that we all are prone to silent judgement. Never in my life have I become more aware of my judgement than while walking through divorce. So, for the ones that aren’t strong enough YET, I want to let you know….I’m here. I know the pain. I am not ashamed of you. Learning to do life again will take everything you’ve got. Let me point you to an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ first. Without being solid in your identity in Him, I can assure you that it will be infinitely harder without this. Second, saturate yourself in truth from the word of God. Lastly, become familiar with Ron Deal and Laura Petherbridge. Read The Smart Stepfamily. The wisdom they poured into the pages of this book is invaluable. Do your family a favor and set up realistic expectations with appropriate and godly guidance.

We look forward with great expectation and rejoice in what God has already done.