It's the first week of Lent.
I decided I wanted to write and reflect more for Lent.
Years ago-- I wrote on this blog more often and there was a time I wrote nearly daily.
The last post here was in 2020.
A lot has changed in my life since then.
I turn 44 tomorrow.
Years ago I wrote a post reflecting on my 40th birthday and the state of the church.
Then I was mourning the eventual break of my church.
I had a spiritual director and we found a connection.
At the time in 2019, I had been in ministry for 13 years and I felt like I was losing something in my church as the church began to break apart. My parents separated when I was 12 and were divorced by the time I was 13. My family broke apart and in 2019 it seemed as though my church family was breaking apart. My spiritual director and I found a metaphor in my parents' divorce and the divorce that was occuring in the church. I was grieving and feeling lost.
I hate the phrase, "God only gives us what we can handle."
I don't believe that is true.
I cannot handle all that is going on. I need Jesus to hold it all. I can't deal with life. I need Jesus to take the burdens.
And Thank God for God. Thank God for our Savior Jesus. Thank God for the Holy Spirit interceding, comforting, and convicting.
Jesus says, "Come to me all you who are weary and caring heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." -Matthew 11:28
There was a lot of pain during my adolescence.
11- Mother fought Breast Cancer
12- Parents Separated
13- Parents Divorced
14- Father Remarried
- Mother had a life-threatening illness of staff infection in her spine and was hospitalized for weeks. Doctors said she would die or be paralyzed from her neck down. She survived and needed an IV every day for a month or more and I cared for her throughout the summer.
15- Mother Remarried abusive narcissist.
16- Mother's husband convinced her to move from Virginia to Alabama and I lived alone.
17- My step-father had convinced me I was worthless and I almost gave in to that thinking and nearly took my life.
There was more than this.... but all that I'm willing to share publicly now...
I was alone.
I thought I had to do it all alone.
I didn't know it could have been different.
I was not healthy.
I smoked cigarettes was addicted to caffeine pills and weighed less than 100 lbs at 5'7.
At my lowest moment- I felt the assurance that God was with me. I can't quite say I remembered this scripture because I'm not sure I knew it then well enough to have remembered it. But I heard it spoken to my heart. Psalm 27:10: "When my father and my mother forsake me, Then the LORD will take care of me.
For years that seemed to be the hardest time of my life. And yet, I knew God was with me. God led me through it.
By 18, I was at college and it was like I had found my home. I grew in my call and clarity about who I was and whose I am, it all became clearer. I found a home at my college, in the United Methodist Church, and most assuredly in a call that God was guiding me in. I began therapy with the chaplain of my college and learned to set boundaries and finally began caring for myself and learning not to hustle for my worth by over-functioning and people-pleasing (still working on all this.)
By 21 I met my husband.
At 22 we were engaged and I became a missionary.
By 23 we were married.
By 24 we were in seminary together.
I was so grateful that now it seemed I had someone to share life with. To share my joys and sorrows. Someone to pray with me and be in ministry with. We even made our license plate "2Clergy."
At 27 we were serving in our first church and found out we were pregnant with our first child.
And by 28 I was a mom.
And by 29 we had our second child.
Last year, he left.
He had lost himself.
I had my first birthday in 21 years without him last year. Friends gathered around me and I was loved.
He didn't communicate much with me or my girls for about 7 months.
For many of those first months, I cried and I relied on my friends and community.
I sat in my chair reading my bible and weeping.
I clung to Jesus and just sat there holding myself with my arms wrapped around my shoulders.
I would pull into the driveway and just sit there in the car weeping after getting kids or a kid to school.
My first year as a single mom was hard.
And it doesn't feel like it's getting any easier.
My girls are really struggling. One moment one of them will be doing well and then in the morning after a good night, she's telling me she wants to die and she "F'ing hates me."
Another is refusing school and I celebrate the fact that after 3 weeks out of school, I got her to just go into the building for 30 minutes yesterday.
I'm so grateful for mental health professionals and for the intensive outpatient therapy program my younger child is doing. And I got a referral from the pediatrician for my older child to do this too.
My girls struggle with Major Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Mood Disorder...
This morning after I got one kid to school after a lot of struggle. She did apologize for cussing at me and yelling and all the hard things.
Every day I'm trying to show up and be present and love them and help them and yet it feels like it is never enough.
I'd love to say I'm co-parenting... but their Dad takes them every other weekend - basically 4 days out of a month. I am thankful for those weekend breaks. I'm thankful for child support.
I find myself in my second year of doing this grieving still so much.
I don't grieve the struggles of living with 3 people with mental health struggles in the house and trying to regulate myself, another adult, and 2 teenagers.
I don't grieve the frustrations and fears when he yelled and screamed and shut down in the midst of crisises with the children.
I do grieve the life I had imagined I would have.
I thought I'd have a best friend and partner to pray with me and live in and through this together.
I thought there would be someone to laugh with and have dinners with the kids around the table, and to celebrate their victories with.
I have cried out to God so much and wondered, pleaded, and asked-- Why?
Why have I had to experience the hardest parts of my life alone?
Why- when I see other people in loving marriages with supportive partners - must I have to parent and navigate this hard time by myself?
Why Lord!?
It's not fair.
I'm sad and weary and tired.
The car broke.
The sink broke.
The flashing tore off the house.
The car broke again
The dishwasher broke.
I feel frustrated and angry.
Every day it's hard.
The girls scream and fight -- about taking a shower, helping with chores, or just getting out of bed-- to function.
Every single thing is hard.
And I am worn.
This morning read through Romans 8 and I read through it again and again.
"For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law- indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in you."
Romans 8: 6-9
In the moments I am crying -- God is here.
I long to be held and loved.
As I weep in my weariness, the Holy Spirit is holding me.
Jesus is loving me.
When it feels like I am doing this all alone.
When I wish that I had someone to be a Father with me as a Mother...
I pray and I pray and I pray.
And as I sat here and prayed and cried a friend texted me--- thank you Holy Spirit.
I called and they prayed with me.
And then I sat and prayed some more.
And I know the truth.
I do have a Father here.
My girls do have a Father who is present and loving, who is patient, and kind.
My girls have a Father who never leaves.
I have a partner to walk with me and parent with me.
I am not alone.
God is here.
This isn't the way I thought it would be.
But I am not alone.
When I set my mind on the things of the flesh- I do feel hostile toward God.
I feel angry and frustrated that I don't have a partner here in the daily struggles or in the small miracles.
I don't have a companion here to hold me through the night and wake up with me.
I don't have someone to pray with in the night when tears flood.
But I do.
I do have a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I do have a God who will never give up.
I have a God who keeps his covenant.
I'll soon be divorced.
The covenant I made on July 27, 2002, will be demolished--- it already was when he stopped loving me; when he chose to love someone else; when he shut down; when he didn't ask for help; when he chose to cling to the easy quick impulsive wants rather than to the faith we shared.
No - this was not what I signed up for.
I have friends who have had divorce parties.
I'm not sure how to navigate this.
It doesn't feel like something to celebrate.
But I do know that I trust in Jesus.
I do know that God is doing a new thing.... a million new things.
I will celebrate that.
I do know that I'm learning how to love again.
I do know that I am learning how to be loved in ways I never imagined could happen.
I do know that God has more for me.
I do know that I am not alone.
I will celebrate that.
I am setting my mind on the things of the Spirit.
And I am choosing to see and know that God has not and will never leave me.
