The dust has settled from tax season and we are getting back into a routine. Well, I use that term, routine, loosely. My OCD and perfectionism love structure, but having grown up in a home (or, more accurately, about 20 homes before I turned eighteen) that lacked structure or discipline, I struggle with follow through. I have no problem creating systems, in other words, but I am constantly fighting to maintain them. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that when a child grows up without one parent in the home, they will struggle in some way in their adult life. I, for instance, did not have a father in my home. My mother was loving and nurturing. She taught me how to be creative, to organize a cupboard, how to cook and how to load a dishwasher. By her example, she taught me to be strong, to overcome adversity, to not let physical handicaps limit you, and she taught me how to work. With her words, she taught me never to depend on a man and that I could be anything I wanted to be. My mother is strong. She raised two girls by herself until she met my step-father when I was ten. And then she raised his two children, her two children and the child they had together. And then she watched my step-dad die a long, slow death, and continued raising their daughter, alone. I am grateful for the mother that I have, and I can see the positive things that she instilled in me. I am a reflection of her in many ways.
What my father taught me was quite different. He taught me to run. When I was two, he left my four-year-old sister, me, and my mom. The few times I did see him during my early years, he wasn’t pleasant. When I lived with him for a summer when I was nine, he taught me that drugs came before everything. When I was fourteen, he taught me how to smuggle drugs into prison. Well, he didn’t actually teach me, but I learned how by watching his wife every time we went to visit him in prison. He did teach me how to jump start a solenoid with a screwdriver when I was seventeen, which came in handy a few times. As I have grown and watched him isolate himself, lose everything, push every family member away with hateful words and physical abuse, I have learned that it is better to deal with the roots of my problems now, so that I don’t grow bitter. In his absence, I failed to learn the things that a father can teach a girl. So hungry for a man’s love, I accepted any man who was willing to look my way. Although I knew I could become anyone that I wanted, I didn’t know that I could choose to love or receive love from anyone I wanted. I didn’t learn about boundaries, or that correction comes from a place of love. He told me never to be afraid…and then sent a man into my life that would be the cause of a home-invasion style robbery in my home when I was in my early teens. I was gripped by fear for years following that. Fear of the dark, of being alone, of falling asleep, of every wind that blew the trees and every creaking sound.
It has taken me years to recognize the things that were missing from my life, from my character, preventing me from walking into the fullness of who I was meant to be. And I didn’t become aware on my own. Over the past couple of years, through many prayers, meetings, Bible studies, self-help books and a whole lot of honesty with myself, I have been able to recognize the gaps in my makeup. And God has been gracious enough to fill those gaps and cover me in an abundance of grace and mercy, and filled me with enough truth to carry me through the times that I wavered. Peter tells us that “Love covers a multitude of sins” (1Peter 4:8). God has covered me in love. If you are struggling with hurts from your past, or you have gaps that need filled, don’t look to your spouse, your job, inside yourself, in a bottle, a pill or anywhere else for the answer; you won’t find the answers there. Look up. In a relationship with your creator, you will find everything you ever wanted.
Uncommonly Common Mom 