Who Am I--and Who Decides Who I Am?

 I should be part of that lovely group of people called “Grandparents” and more specifically “Grandma”. The majority of people my age, and even younger now, have numerous pictures of their grandkids on their phones, walls, and social media and are quite eager to talk about their antics and show off their pictures. When I’m asked if I have any grandchildren, the answer varies depending on the situation. Sometimes, a quick yes will suffice as long as the conversation moves on. Yes, but it’s complicated is a common answer, one which I sometimes elaborate on depending more so on my mood than the situation. But often, it’s just easier to say no.

 I do have 3 grandchildren that I know about (there may be more--haven’t had any updates through the grapevine, which is how I found out about the last two), but I do not consider myself to be a grandma. Our oldest granddaughter is 8 years old and I’ve never seen her, never held her, have not watched her (or her siblings) grow up. I never got the chance to see our son become a father, growing in his abilities as his children grow and change. Our son has willingly stolen this part of my life that I had so looked forward to and there is no way that any of this can be restored.

 Overall, my life is good. But I feel like I’m living in a sunny day with a dark cloud constantly hovering nearby. Some days, the I am able to stay in the sunshine regardless of what is going on around me. But there are days that the dark cloud consumes me and fills me with guilt and regret. I have gone over our family time with a fine-toothed comb and believe me, I can find all sorts of things to feel guilty over. I can remember little events that most wouldn’t even think of that burden me with guilt and regret. I am the one that our three kids spent the most time with. If there is an issue, of course it would be my fault. The blame and guilt are easy for me to accept.

 But when I’m able to push that cloud back, which happens most days, I realize that we were a good family. We weren’t perfect and I would definitely do things differently with what I now know. But we did the best we could with the knowledge that we had, and our kids were happy. We lived life together. I don’t remember a time that any of our kids didn’t want us to do things together. They did have friends and went off with them for various events but their friends liked to come spend time with us as well. I felt that we were a normal family, one where we all really liked each other. I don’t recall a time when one of our kids decided they weren’t going to speak to us for an extended length of time. We didn’t shut each other out like that. When they got older, they earned more freedoms, therefore spending more time away from us. But they came back, enjoying family gatherings or simple evenings watching a movie together.

 My life revolved around our kids. When they were little, I was in charge of nursery and children’s church. Then I helped run a once-a-week preschool program. Moving upward, besides teaching them at home,  we were 4-H leaders and part of the leadership team for our home school group. We worked along side them as youth leaders and were on worship teams together. We went on mission trips together. Never once did I feel any resentment or that we were encroaching on their territory. We have great memories of those times together.

 I can realize that we had a great relationship with our son well into his adulthood where all of the decisions of how he spent his time were his own. Up until he was in a relationship at age 26, I considered us to not just be mother and son, we were friends. He confided in me, using me as a sounding board for decisions he was making. It was all so normal, so expected. I do know the catalyst that somehow convinced him that we were bad people and that he grew up in an unsafe and unhealthy household. Even with that knowledge, the blame and the guilt is always hovering to bury me once more.

 I have never been much of a group person. I much prefer one-on-one gatherings or small gatherings. But now it’s much easier to simply to simply stay by myself. Most women, as I said earlier, want to talk about their grandchildren. Although I’m happy for them, especially when I watched their kids grow up, that is the sort of thing that draws the cloud closer to me. But then there are those who, out of respect knowing our situation, try not to talk about grandkids. That’s another level of emotion--I want to be part of their lives but the pain is so real when I imagine what I’m missing out on.

 I have met a lot of people in the last fifteen or so years who didn’t know us when we were raising our kids. They may have known us when our son was still part of our family but many don’t know any of our kids. I feel like I need to defend myself when they hear my story. I wasn’t a bad mom, we weren’t a broken family (until our son broke it himself), we didn’t abuse our kids physically or emotionally--we really were a happy family. I feel that I’m in a segment of society that is not understood by people around me. How could anyone understand what we’ve been through, and still are going through, when we struggle to understand it ourselves?

 I try not to be judgmental, but I do analyze situations. I’m a thinker; it’s just what I do. In looking around me, I notice families who get together on a regular basis or at least for major holidays. I know that one family had an abusive parent. The other had divorced parents, another had substance abuse problems. One where the parents couldn’t communicate without yelling at each other, ones where parents often swore at their kids. Sexual abuse within the family.  I’m not saying that any of these situations mean that these people are undeserving of happy families. But if they all love, forgive, and move on, what is so bad with our family that there is no love and forgiveness given or offered?

 Yes, we have 2 other children. They’ve been hurt, too, and have been very supportive of us as we’ve been on this journey. I am thankful for them and we enjoy their company. I got much closer to my parents and other family members as we banded together in support of each other. He abandoned all of us. But the pain is still there. Always. And no one else understands it from a mother's point of view. He didn’t acknowledge or attend his sister’s wedding. He didn’t visit his grandfather when he was told that he was quickly being swallowed by Alzheimer’s Disease. He didn’t visit his grandmother when he was told that she was no longer receiving treatment for her cancer and didn’t have long to live. He didn’t come to his grandma’s funeral. His general disregard for his grandparents, who were always there for him, is almost harder for me to accept than his abandonment of us.

 Yes, I hope to have other grandchildren someday. I look forward to that and I know that I will be one of those excited grandmas with pictures and stories to tell her friends. But that black cloud will still be there, always hovering, always ready to take me down again. I will know that I have 3 grandchildren who don't know me and a son who chooses daily to disregard his family. I have read many books to try to help me work through my grief and regret. In “It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way”, by Lysa TerKeurst, she states:

"Sometimes all the homes around me seem to be bursting with laughter and love and a normalcy currently out of reach for me. I’m happy for them. I used to be one of them. But it’s so hard to see the stark contrast of their lives and mine. We all have areas of life that seem to fall impossibly short. We thought this aspect of life would bring us great joy. After all, it does for others. But not for us. The very thing we thought would burn so brightly with joy has turned out to burn us.

And what makes it so maddening is that it didn’t have to be this way! Usually, the most disappointing realities come from the most realistic expectations. An unmet longing from a realistic expectation is such a searing pain within a human heart. You know this whole deal should have and could have been different. But their choices were their own. Their desires, their brokenness, their selfishness, or their lack of awareness left your needs unattended. What seemed so realistic to you was met with a resistance and ultimately a rejection by someone you didn’t think would ever hurt you."      (italics mine)

 I am a broken person from a broken family. My healing has been sporadic, but I feel that overall I have been moving forward. I sometimes feel forgotten, yet I don’t want pity. I think that I want some level of understanding, but most of what I need is inner healing and the ability to talk about our situation without feeling guilty. “Never in a million years” is a statement that we’ve used frequently. Yes, it feels like God does sometimes allow more than we can handle on any given day. But I choose to see the simple joys and beauty around me that the dark cloud is unable to fully extinguish. My life is not what I had planned. My new normal is not what I want. Yet I will continue, most days, to press forward. I will strive to learn and grow and flourish in the midst of the pain that never fully goes away. I will strive to live the truth of who I am, who I’ve always been--a good person who loves my family. I won’t let anyone take that from me.

 

 

The Mirror By the Woods

God has been speaking to me in analogies and pictures. The following is what I learned today.

I see a mirror at the edge of the woods. The woods are thick yet there is a small path that seems to lead deep within. The image in the mirror is the God I’ve worshipped and prayed to over the years. I’m not sure how the image was formed, but it’s what I’ve ended up with after many years of following Him. It’s the God that I’ve been settled on. My relationship has seemed hollow at times but God has been unwavering and I’ve been content. I would occasionally glance at the path but decided that whatever was hidden down that way was more than likely something for someone else. Things were okay the way they were.

Suddenly, the mirror developed a crack in it and I realized that although I felt like I was serving the true God, I had only been offered a glimpse of who He truly was. I looked at the path again, considering a choice.

I then realized that God wasn’t in the mirror nor was He at the end of the path. God was the woods. I could stand at the entrance to the path and still be in God, seeing part of Him as He truly is. But once I stepped on the path, the beauty, the intricacies, and the depth of who God is became apparent. How had I been content with the flat, lifeless image of God in that mirror for so many years? I was content because it was easy. Just enough of God reflected back at me so that I felt that I was doing my part and that God should probably be pleased with me.

And yet, how many times did I turn away from the God in the mirror, somehow sensing that I was looking in the wrong place?

Now that I’ve started down that path into who God is, I realized that this journey is not about me. I can’t help but be in awe of God as He reveals something new to me at each turn in the path. The deeper I go, the more beautiful He is. I now know that the plan is to lose myself in those woods—to lose myself in God.

Strangely, the mirror has disappeared.

Who Is In Control?

Galatians 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The fruit of the Spirit known as self-control has plunged me deep in thought as I’ve contemplated what that term in the context of Galatians 5:22-23 means to me. I have always thought of self-control as being able to keep myself from doing things that I shouldn’t be doing. However, what about the control to do the things that I should be doing? This is where my problem comes in.

In the past, I have tried to control my behavior. I haven’t done a bad job but there are many areas where I feel that I haven’t controlled things very well. These are the areas that keep creeping back into my focus when I realize that I need to get my life under control. So what do I do? I make another list, read another book, come up with some sort of chart to help me control my behavior. Why, after all of these years, do I really think that there is some sort of gimmick that’s going to work for me this time? Why do I think that I may finally have everything stirred together in the proper manner that it’s going to make that life-changing difference in my life that I continue to seek?

 What I have come to realize is that the way that I need to control myself is to recognize what parts of my own self that I need to let go of. I need the control to be willing to let go of any negative behaviors or thought patterns that will hinder the Holy Spirit from working in and through my life. This type of self-control isn’t about being controlled by myself, as in having the self-control to not eat that cookie, but it’s the ability I have to recognize within myself (with God's guidance) what part of my behavior I need to rebuke and release so that I’m no longer quenching or hindering the Spirit.

I feel that the reason that this fruit is called “self-control” as opposed to “Spirit-control” is that God will not force us to change. He will not come into our lives and automatically rid us of the things in our lives that negatively affect us. We are not created to be his robots. We are created to follow Him and to emulate Jesus with our lives. We must be the ones to have the control because only through using our self-control to move “us” out of the way can there truly be room for the Spirit to work in us to produce the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness spoken about in these verses.

Think of a body guard bringing someone important through a crowd to the stage. The body guard goes on ahead, moving people out of the way so that the dignitary can move through. Once that special person reaches the stage, the body guard steps back out of the way so that the dignitary is able to do the work he is meant to do. The body guard, however, remains vigilant to keep people away who may hinder the work of the one he’s guarding. Our purpose for being in control of ourselves is only to move the things out of our lives that are in the way of the Spirit. Once that’s done, though it will be an ongoing process, we need to step back and let the Spirit do what He’s meant to do in our lives. We must remain vigilant as well, being aware of thoughts and actions that will hinder the work of the Spirit and being ready to remove them from our lives when they get in His way.

Self-control, although it is mentioned last in the list, is truly the key to the whole verse. I always thought that love was the key because love is the over-arching theme of the Bible. But first, we need self-control to be able to recognize and eliminate anything that can get in the way of the Spirit’s work to produce the rest of the fruit in us. Only then will we be fully Spirit-controlled and able to do the work that God has called us to do.

Vienna Waits for You

Matthew McConaughey and Billy Joel. Not much of a connection it would seem, but their words have spoken to me in recent weeks and, to me, they’re connected.

I don’t know if it’s the lingering winter weather, circumstances in life, or just the fact that I’m another year older, but I’ve been feeling something deep inside. I want to say that I’m feeling nostalgic, but that seems to be looking back at what has already happened in my life. I feel that same sort of feeling, but I feel it as I look forward in life. Call it “forward-thinking nostalgia”, I guess.

I was listening to an oldies station a couple of weeks ago and the song, “Vienna”, by Billy Joel,  came on. I know the song but have not paid close attention to the lyrics.

But you know that when the truth is told

That you can get what you want

Or you can just get old

You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through

When will you realize... Vienna waits for you?

Hmmm. I can get what I want or I can just get old. Not that I necessarily want Vienna, but whatever it is I want is waiting for me. When will I realize that?

Matthew McConaughey won the Oscar for best actor this year. I didn’t watch the entire Academy Awards program so I ended up missing his speech. Because I saw his speech posted on Facebook, I decided to see what he had to say. Although many were impressed that he thanked God as he was talking, I thought it was much more thought provoking when he began to talk about going after his hero.

And to my hero. That's who I chase. Now when I was 15 years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say 'who's your hero?' And I said, 'I don't know, I gotta think about that. Give me a couple of weeks.' I come back two weeks later, this person comes up and says 'who's your hero?' I said, 'I thought about it. You know who it is? It's me in 10 years.' So I turned 25. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, 'So, are you a hero?' And I was like, 'not even close. No, no, no.' She said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because my hero's me at 35.' So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna attain that. I know I'm not, and that's just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.

First of all, I’m not a fan of the word “hero”. I think that it’s been over used and misused since 9-11 and the true meaning of a hero has been watered down. I don’t think I really have any heroes in my life. In this situation, though, I think the term mentor or role model can be used in place of hero. Who is my role model? 

Who do I look to as someone that I want to emulate and learn from? What better person than an improved, focused, streamlined self to have as a goal to attain? No one else will be exactly who I want to be. There will always be something in another person’s lifestyle choices that is not something that I want in my life. Only as I picture myself in the future do I see who I truly want to be. That person should be my mentor and who I am striving to be.

To some, it may seem disappointing that we can never achieve hero status since it’s something that seems to be 10 years out of our grasp at every point in life. To me, however, it’s exciting! I see what I want to become and set my goals accordingly. If I have a bad day, or even a bad year, and seem to have a setback from attaining that 10-year goal, I see it as a fresh opportunity to regroup and rethink what I want to become. And I’m still looking 10 years ahead of myself, whether it’s from a successful day or a defeated year.

At 54 years old, it may seem daunting to think in terms of ten years…and ten years beyond that. As the song says, I’m going to kick off before I even get halfway through. But that’s the joy of life! I want to have so many dreams, plans, goals, and life events that I die before I accomplish them all. I want to die in the midst of doing them. No, I don’t wish for an early death—I wish for, and plan for, a prolonged, fully-lived life. I don’t want to give up on who I am and what I can accomplish. Maybe in becoming a role model for myself, I’ll also end up being a role model for others. After all, it's hard to lead others if I'm not willing to follow myself.

Why should I just get old when I can get what I want? Every opportunity, my Vienna (whatever that may be), is out there waiting for me to discover it. Each day that I accomplish something that moves me a step closer to that 10-year goal is a day closer to Vienna…and my new, improved 10-year goal.

Christmas Traditions

Growing up, I didn’t think about tradition very much. Tradition seems like such a formal word yet I know that our family had many holiday traditions. As the years went by with our children, I realized that if we did something they liked just one time, they were ready to consider it a tradition.  Although I’m sure most everyone has their own Christmas traditions that have developed over time, I’d like to share some of ours.

First, we’ve never done the “Santa” routine with our kids. Before we were even married, Tim said that he didn’t want to have our kids believe in a Santa who delivers presents. I wanted to have them believe since that’s what I grew up with, but once we had kids I changed my mind.  I always told people the reason we chose to let them know that the presents were from us is because I’m needy and I wanted them to be excited and thankful that we’d gotten them the presents, and not have the glory go to Santa Claus. We were careful to let our kids know the Santa beliefs of others and (except for one slip up that went unheeded) they were good to keep the secret for others.

Since we wanted our focus to be on the birth of Christ, our first decoration to go up after Thanksgiving was our nativity scene that Tim’s mom made for us.  We also have many nativity scene ornaments and decorations around the house making it easy to keep our minds on the true reason for Christmas.

We have gotten a real tree every year. I now think it would make sense to get an artificial tree, but have been met with resistance—even from myself. When decorating, we listen to the amazing a cappella Christmas album, An Evening in December, by First Call. I am a selfish (yet again) mom. I put the lights on the tree and do my decorating first. Then the kids have their time to put their own decorations on the tree. 

Christmas Eve tradition begins with going to the service at church. When we get home, it’s time to watch Claymation Christmas, a favorite that I remember watching on TV when I was growing up. The kids are allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve. Since I don’t put their gifts under the tree ahead of time, they open gifts from each other. Eggnog is usually included in the evening, but I know it hasn’t been done every year. I would call it a faulty tradition….

Although we don’t have Santa deliver presents, I still like the awe and wonder of coming down on Christmas morning and seeing presents under the tree that weren’t there the night before. I would wait until the kids went to bed to put their wrapped presents under the tree and stuff their stockings. Thankfully, they still want to be surprised as adults. They now stay up later than I do, but they’re willing to stay out of the “Christmas tree room” and not look at their stockings when they walk by so that I can get all of my work done without staying up all night.

With a strict rule to not wake us up before 7 a.m., the girls (at 7 on the dot) would run into our room and get in bed with us. Their brother wasn’t quite as anxious, although he realized that the girls would not-too-kindly wake him up if he didn’t get himself up in time. (I kind of think that was part of his tradition as he moaned and groaned every year when the girls would go jump on him to wake him up.) No one was allowed downstairs until we were all ready to go as a family. Now that they’re adults and have a bit more patience, we have changed the time to 8, but the girls are still as excited as they always were to come wake us up.

Our first stop once we get downstairs is in front of the stockings and nativity scene. Before we check out the stockings (that have to have something sticking out of them—it’s tradition!), we get the baby Jesus figurine and sing a song that the kids learned in a church musical many years ago. Called “Happy Birthday, Jesus”, it helps us to be sure that our first focus on Christmas morning is on the birth of our Savior.

Once the stockings have been dumped and all the contents gone through, we move in to the Christmas tree. Opening presents is never a free-for-all event—we take the time to open each present one by one, usually going around the circle or by age.  The response to the presents, as well as the type of presents given, has changed over the years, but each year still bring a sense of wonder, excitement and just plain contentment and thankfulness as we give and receive our gifts from each other.

A few years ago, I started making homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I think that’s a tradition that will stick around for a while!

My mom and dad typically come over for a visit later in the day to see everyone’s gifts and to enjoy family time together. When the kids were young, we would not only have our own Christmas time together but we would cram in two other family get-togethers on Christmas day itself. When that tradition changed, I was bothered at first. I liked celebrating Christmas with extended family on Christmas day. Now, I enjoy having a more low-key family day on Christmas and having two other days for celebrating Christmas with each side of the family. Less stress, more days to celebrate and enjoy life with family.

I never thought that we would be one of “those” families who don’t have anything better to do on Christmas than go to see a movie. However, one year when we didn’t have any other plans, we went to a movie with some friends. I was shocked at how packed the theater was! Now, going to a movie on Christmas day is another event that has become a tradition in our family that we all look forward to.

Our son is now married and has his own family to share his Christmas morning traditions. I realize that there will be a time when we probably won’t have any of our children around on Christmas morning. But that will be okay—we’ll know that they’re beginning their own traditions, more than likely similar to what they grew up with. And, as I did with my family, they will add their own flavor to what they do. Tim and I will adjust, continuing some of the same traditions and will easily come up with our own traditions that involve just the two of us. Our traditions will grow and evolve as our family does. But our main tradition will be the same: our focus will be on the birth of Jesus, the true reason for the Christmas season. 

I Am Getting Older: Looking Older

I do not like having wrinkles and gray hair. I was looking at some pictures of me from 4 years ago and the first thing I said was, “Look how brown my hair is!”. Of course, that was with quite a bit of cover-up help from Clairol, or whatever the hair color company was.

Unfortunately, a few years back, I decided that I am anti-chemical. I’m not exactly sure how I got to that point, but I think it began with doing research on coconut oil. I tend to start on one subject, and as I’m searching, I end up finding all sorts of interesting sites. All of a sudden, it seemed that I was reading about the dangers of the chemicals that are in shampoo, lotion, and other everyday items that we all take for granted.

As I’ve said before, I’m not an activist. If you want to find out more information on the dangers of chemicals in personal care products, I’d urge you to research it for yourself. A good place to start is http://www.mercola.com/. Be sure to confirm everything you read, although in this case it’s kind of hard since many conventional sites say that all of the products are fine to use and are actually good for you. Anyway, do the research or just go natural knowing that it’s more than likely better than using chemicals.

At this point, I feel that I need to put in a disclaimer. I am not criticizing anyone for their use of commercial/chemical products. I am telling my own story, not judging how anyone else chooses to live their life. 

I colored my hair for about 15 years. I ended up more reddish than brown for a while. I had a coloring accident that turned my hair black the day before I was going to a big wedding (our daughter, Carla, said that I could put on a leather dress and pretend that I was Pocohantas!). I am quite thankful for a beautician neighbor who was able to gently strip the black color out of my hair, leaving me with the reddish brown color that I’d gotten used to. Our son called me a calico a time or two when the color was growing out—I had the bottle color, my former natural brown color, and a lot of gray hair in the mix.

Yet with all of the coloring hassles, I didn’t want to go gray. I remembered a commercial saying, “I’m not going to age gracefully. I’m going to fight it every step of the way.” But I am who I am. I had a few gray hairs when I was 18, and although I don’t think I was “prematurely gray”, I definitely was heading toward being gray a lot sooner than I thought I should. I decided that I didn’t need to fight aging in a chemical way. I would obviously still be aging, and doing it in a more unhealthy manner by using so many chemicals to try to maintain a younger look.

I do want to age gracefully. I’ve seen some beautiful women, young and old, who have a head full of gray hair. I’ve seen women with obviously colored hair who still look old and act defeated. Whichever I would choose, I’d needed to simply come to the conclusion that I’m beautiful the way that I am and to carry myself with confidence.

And then there are the wrinkles. I will not stay out of the sun and I don’t use chemical sunscreen. The commercials that shows the products that fill in the wrinkles, plump out the skin, and make you look younger are so convincing to me. However, the fear of the chemicals keeps me away from them. I had found a natural lotion that worked well for me until the company went out of business. Now I make my own lotion. It’s not the greatest, but it works well enough. And I have wrinkles because I enjoy the sunshine and I’m almost in my mid-fifties. I laugh, cry, get frustrated, and live life.  And it shows on my face. But that’s okay, since I’m living life to enjoy it.

So, when you see me today, my face is wrinkled enough that you won’t confuse me with a younger woman, and you’ll see me with my natural hair color. ..which, by the way, I’d still say is brown. I know that I am not 20 anymore…or even 30 or 40. I do, at times, feel sad for the loss of my youthful look. But I look back on my life and realize that in the midst of growing older, I have grown in other ways, too.

My next post will be about feeling older. Just because I’m in my fifties, do I have to suffer the aches, pains and illnesses of an older person? I’m finding out that, although it’s not easy, I can take care of myself in a way that makes me feel so much better—and younger, too. Feeling young and healthy is so much better than covering up gray hair and wrinkles with chemicals to give the appearance of being younger. Being fit and healthy makes me be able to pull off the gray hair and wrinkles with more grace knowing that I may look old, but I don’t have to act old.

Throwing Family Away

Although I should have a blog ready to post, I didn’t feel like posting what I’ve written. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and with our upcoming family get together, I was thinking about family gatherings through the years. So many wonderful memories, yet so many missing family members over the years. Some to death, some to location, some because they’ve decided to throw family away.

This will be my first Thanksgiving without having any of our children here to celebrate with us. That they won’t be here comes as no surprise to me because of what their circumstances are at this time in their lives. However, I know that only 2 of 3 of our adult children would choose to spend holidays with our family.

When I think back over our Thanksgiving traditions, I could easily say that we have food traditions. We have most of the basic “turkey and trimmings” feast, along with pumpkin and custard pies, corn casserole, and other desserts and side dishes that have come and gone over the years. We first start our Thanksgiving Day celebration by having breakfast with friends. Although I don’t have an exact number on how many years we’ve been doing that, I’d say it’s approaching 20 years.

Although the food traditions aren’t wrong in any way, and we have come to expect to have certain dishes served, food is just the centerpiece of our celebration. The centerpiece is what’s placed on the table for people to talk over and around. Our Thanksgiving tradition focuses on family. Although we are grateful and we do take the time to thank God for the blessings he’s bestowed on each one of us, family is the reason for the gathering. Current news is shared, eyes are rolled over hearing the same stories yet another time. Much laughter, some tears and heartache. Another Thanksgiving Day spent sharing life; bonds grown another year stronger.

How, then, can a person throw away everything that has to do with their family? I realize that there are broken families in the world where a person doesn’t feel loved or safe in any way. But what about the good families that have been broken because of one person deciding that they don’t want to be a part of that family anymore. I never thought that I would be part of a broken family. Tim and I have been happily married for 32 years and grow closer with each passing year. My parents have been married for 54 years—pretty sure I’m safe there. I never thought that a child would be the cause of our broken family.

How does a person feel when they have years of family traditions and memories? Do they try to incorporate some of those memories into new memories with their new family? Have those memories that mean so much to the rest of us, become like a poison to them so they try to purge them from their minds? Do they remember with fondness the family times we’ve all shared or are their memories tainted so that the very things that bring us together every year with expectation make them feel trapped, inferior, or somehow unloved?

Children don’t have a choice of what family they’re part of in the way that someone becomes part of a family through marriage. The growing-up years are typically full of stories, songs, quotes, traditions, foods, expectations, hurts, love and togetherness that help form who we become as an adult. If, by choice, we throw all of those things away, what does that leave us? Who are we without our past?

Those who choose to throw family away will quite possibly go on to have a wonderful Thanksgiving and will more than likely have much to be thankful for. Do they give any thought to the broken family that they’ve left behind? Do they know that although our table looks full and we still celebrate as a family, we will never be truly complete without them? Do they understand that part of our Thanksgiving Day prayer is for them to choose to come back?

Family is worth the effort. Family is worth working through whatever troubles may come along the way. Family is our heritage, both to receive and to pass on. Although our family is broken, we will continue our family Thanksgiving Day traditions with those who remain. We will connect in some way with those who can’t join us, we will be saddened by those who make the choice to stay away. But above all, we will continue to go to God with thanksgiving, knowing that He hears our prayers and will cover us with peace.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 4-7 (italics added)