Grief and Hope

     It has taken awhile for me to write this. It took me a while to get started and several attempts to finish it out. For me, writing is a therapeutic way to process. But it takes vulnerability and honesty to be of any benefit and that is not always comfortable. For the past two weeks I have chosen more of a retreat stance. I feel like I have been holding my heart tightly in my hands, trying desperately to keep all of the shards in place. I haven’t wanted to let go of my grip because I know all of those fragments will spill apart and when I do, it will hurt deeply. I am aware that it is broken, but instead of admitting it, I have been suspended in the early stages of grief, somewhere between shock and denial.

     It doesn’t always matter how long you know something is coming, sometimes it still knocks you off your feet. That’s how I have felt since July 25. I knew the time would come for Suzie to enter long term care, but there is no real way to prepare for that or to have any idea what the impact will feel like. This past Friday, August 10, I finally began loosening my grip. Well, honestly it felt more like my fingers were pried open. Either way, I felt the stabbing pain that I had been avoiding for 2 weeks. Don’t get me wrong, there has been a cloud of sadness hanging over the Mercer home since Suzie left, but I think we have all been in a state of disbelief and shock.

     I have written a lot about Suzie, but I could write volumes on this precious child and barely scratch the surface. When Suzie came to us in 2014, we were informed that she had the diagnoses of PTSD, ODD, ADHD and Developmental Delay. It wasn’t long after that OCD was added to her alphabet soup of diagnoses. Her first psychiatrist seemed kind of odd and I had a hard time following his train of thought. Reflecting back, I realize how brilliant he was. He was the first person to tell us he believed we were looking at pediatric bipolar.

     We kept journals of her moods over certain periods and the cycles became so obvious. There are the low periods. One of the moments that still hurts to think about is the time she told me she wished she couldn’t breathe anymore. She told me she hated herself and everyone around her. When I tried to tell her I loved her and that I wanted her in my life she told me, “Just give up!”

      Then there are the manic periods. She has bundles of energy as it is. I have often joked about strapping my fitbit to her for the day, but I don’t think it can count that high. When we are in the manic moods we see the delusions of grandeur and the invincibility. She sleeps less, eats more, and is even more impulsive. But underlying this entire phase is a constant state of agitation. It is like a raw nerve that is exposed 24/7.

     This is the stage that we often have the most severe meltdowns. I have seen my sweet, smiley and loving child lose all control over herself. Imagine the hulk, but smaller with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. I have looked my child in her eyes and wondered where she really is. I have been bitten, spit on, slapped, pinched, kicked, screamed at, and told I was hated. I have also seen her hit herself, slam her head into the wall, and punch out a window. It is like a feral animal lashing out because it is scared and hurt and feels backed into a corner. Sometimes this has happened over arguments with her brother, sometimes it happens because she doesn’t get here way, and the most puzzling is when it comes out of nowhere. Seriously, completely out of nowhere.

     Sometimes I see it coming and we can redirect. We do deep breathing or talk it out to avoid an actual meltdown. Sometimes it is like being hit by a Mack truck that you never saw coming. I have videotaped her before and shown her the footage later only to be asked, “Who is that?”

     The thing with pediatric bipolar is the moods can cycle much quicker than in adults. Sometimes several times in a day. But it isn’t all a hurricane of moods, we have times where things are great. The kids get along. They play together. There is laughter and growth and peace. It’s just those don’t last near long enough. With her quick metabolism and being in the time in her life where she is growing like a weed, it has made getting meds to help her stabilize nearly impossible.

     I have shared over the last year about Suzie’s three acute inpatient stays at a behavioral health hospital. After her second stay our psychiatrist recommended long term care. He explained that they had done a lot of testing with Suzie and some of her tests indicated we were also dealing with a mild intellectual disability (she would have formerly been diagnosed as mentally retarded). Suzie has been on the border of that classification for quite awhile. We knew her mom was intellectually disabled, but while Suzie and Will were behind when we got them, they were only 5 and 6, so the gap seemed small.

      Will has continued to grow and learn. He is still a little behind, but is reading well and is catching up. Suzie hit a wall towards the end of first grade. I had been so excited all year at how she was growing and then BAM, it just stopped. So she repeated first grade and at about the same point, she hit the same wall. Partway through the end of second grade, we realized the gap we saw in the beginning was now a very wide chasm.

     This is when our psychiatrist brought up the intellectual disability diagnosis and told us that combined with a mood disorder this was going to present a lot of challenges in Suzie’s future. He felt like a long term care facility would be able to really delve into the trauma therapy that she needs while monitoring her medication levels and moods from an intensive approach. They contacted all of the nearby facilities and Andrew called dozens more. We were told it would probably be August before they got her admission done at any of them. So we were surprised when they called at the end of July and wanted us to bring her the next day. We negotiated so that we could take her to the beach. 

     The hardest part was that since her last inpatient stay, she had really been much more stable. We had some good trips. She seemed happy and at peace most of the time. There were a few melt downs, but nothing terrible. But just about the time I would start to doubt that we needed to do long term, I would see a glimpse of the angry Suzie and it would remind me we couldn’t afford to not try. 

     The facility she was accepted into is a little over an hour away. (It was our top choice). She goes to school and has special curriculum that is designed for her needs. They are working on behaviors and feelings, while doing some intensive counseling and group therapy. We have family therapy meetings at least twice a month. They have visitation every Saturday and Sunday and we are able to take Albany and Will. For the first two weeks we couldn’t visit. We had our five minute phone calls each night, but sometimes she was asleep before her phone time and often she just wanted to talk to each person quickly and ask us to pray for her and then she would let us go. After the 30 day mark we will be able to take her out to eat or do something around town for a few hours on a day pass. If that goes well, her psychiatrist and therapist will determine if she is ready for overnight passes. She only gets 18 overnight passes for the entire 6-12 months she is there. They only grant them for 1-2 nights at a time, sometimes a little longer over the holidays. So we have to be sparing with them.

     Last Friday was the end of the 2 week waiting period. Andrew and I went to attend a family therapy meeting. It mostly involved going over what they had worked on so far and verifying some survey answers Suzie made to get an accurate view. After the meeting we got to hang out for a little over an hour and eat lunch together. It was such a sweet day. She was happy to see us. She told us about her friends, the food, and her schedule. She seemed peaceful and happy.

     It was the last ten minutes of the visit that I could feel her demeanor shifting. She got quiet and began to withdrawing. As we walked toward the door, I saw the tears in her eyes and the pain on her face. It was everything I could do not to scoop her up and make a run for it. She hugged us fiercely, gave kisses, and cried as she told us she loved us.

     But when I stepped out of the building after our goodbyes, clutching the fragments of my heart felt like too heavy of a load to bear. As I let go, I could feel every emotion I had kept at arm’s length over the past two weeks. Facing the reality of the foreseeable future brought a flood of tears and deep ache. Six months to a year. That is such a long time. I haven’t lost the sense of peace that it is the right decision, but even that doesn’t erase the pain.

     The swirling of emotions and questions have taken over most of my mental space. I wonder if she got all of the shampoo out of her hair. I wonder if there was something I missed or could have done that would have made it so we didn’t have to do this. I wonder what she is doing right now. I will wonder that again 10 minutes from now. I wonder if this is really going to help. I wonder if we are going to lose the ground we have made in attachment. I wonder if someone is giving her hugs. And I wonder…

     If I were to be honest, I would say more of that is worry than wonder. And just like I have to let the broken pieces of my heart fall apart so they can be mended back together, I have to let go of the worries. If I keep trying to carry the worries around, I don’t know that I will have enough strength or bravery to deal with the grief.

     I miss Suzie. We all miss the energy and warmth that she provides in this home. We are all grieving her absence. At the same time, I also truly believe that this is the right decision. If we get to her teenage years and haven’t been able to tackle the trauma, work on the behaviors, and stabilize the moods… I honestly don’t even want to finish that sentence. But the right decision isn’t always easy and it definitely isn’t fun. So we press on, acknowledging the pain and leaning on one another to keep moving.

     I will close with a couple of things that have encouraged us. The first is that I have talked with a couple of different people from different backgrounds who have experiences with the facility Suzie is in. All of them have had great things to say about the program and that there have been successes. That has brought so much peace to us.

     The second was meeting Suzie’s therapist both times. I was so impressed by the way she asked questions, the notes she took (especially on the things other people have felt was trivial), and her willingness to think outside of the box. After hearing from everyone how good Suzie had been behaving, I admitted to her that I was afraid they were going to tell us nothing was wrong and send her home. Her therapist looked me in the eye and smiled and said, “This is normal. We honeymoon for the first couple of months, but trust me, I have already seen glimpses of she is dealing with. She is right where she needs to be.” 

     The last encouragement is that Suzie seems happy. I know she misses us and is so excited about getting an overnight pass to spend the night at home. She is enjoying school, has made friends, and likes her teacher. She excitedly told us last night that her team won a volleyball game and she got a piece of candy yesterday.

     I guess that pretty much sums it up. Grief, sadness, peace, encouragement, and lots of hope. If I haven’t returned your call or text, I apologize. I promise they have meant the world to us! As I said, I have been in retreat mode lately, but am finally coming out of hiding. Signing out with lots of love, Jaimie

An open letter to my kids' bio mom

You have been on my mind a lot today. I am sure it is because it is Mother's day and without you, I may have an only child.  Not that life would not have been complete with just Albany.  But without you, I wouldn't have the privilege of raising this sweet blue eyed boy and this feisty, freckle nosed girl. Albany would not have grown in resilience, empathy and bravery the way she has. 

There are so many things I wonder about.  I wonder how you are doing.   I wonder how often you think of Will and Suzie.  I wonder about their little half sister.  I wonder how badly your heart must ache on days like this.  

Despite the negatives and the trauma that was caused because of you, my heart hurts for you.  The deck was stacked against you in so many ways that was never fair.  I hate that people weren't able to help you in a way that would have helped you overcome your disabilities, to get you into a safe environment, to provide you a sense of stability and health, and to teach you how to be a responsible parent.  I am sorry you never had a chance to watch them grow up, to see them become more independent and to succeed.  

I remember your face clearly at the termination of parental rights. Even though there was a lot of chatter from your family members directed at my husband and I, you seemed somewhat at peace that it was in the best interest of the kids for you to let them go so they could get out of the family and dysfunction that you were raised in.  So they could be adopted. So they could have a chance. 

Some people act like we are heroes or saviors.  We aren't and we are humbled by the realization that we had something you never did.  Privilege.  

Both my parents and Andrew's have stayed together.  They created safe, stable environments for us to be raised in.  They were aware and involved enough to try to protect us from those who would try to steal our innocence or take advantage of us.  And while being protective isn't always enough, we were fortunate that nothing happened anyway.  Education and hard work were modeled for us and we were encouraged to be our best selves.  We were raised in families where at least our basic needs were met and we always knew we had a safe place to stay, meals to fill our bellies, and medical care.  

The way I was raised was completely out of my control. If I hadn't been given that foundation, who knows where I would be or what I would be like.  I do know from conversations that you were not provided these same opportunities or privileges.  I am sorry for that, because it seems like that it all kind of led you to an impossible situation.

I am thankful that you ultimately had their best interest in mind, at least towards the end.  I pray that you are at peace and know that your babies are taken care of to the best of our ability.  They have an amazing big sister who provides so much love, nurturing, forgiveness and grace to them.  I also pray that those in your life now help you to be the strongest and healthiest you. 

I will forever be grateful to you that you brought these amazing children into the world.  I promise not to take it for granted or to miss out on the sacrifice and heartache that you have endured.  

With love,

Jaimie

Frogging in the New Year

A few years ago I began knitting a prayer shawl for my mom’s friend.  I was a little over halfway finished when the lady passed away from cancer.  A couple of weeks ago I was looking through the closet for some yarn and I came across the unfinished shawl.  I held it for a bit and pondered what to do with it.  I have had it on my heart to knit a prayer shawl for a lady I recently met.  On one hand, I had made more progress on this shawl than I had remembered and it shouldn’t take too long to finish, but to pick up and continue where I left off didn’t feel right. 

Later that evening, when everyone else had gone to bed, I sat on the couch still looking at the shawl and made the decision that if I was going to knit this for someone else, I needed to start over.  In knitting the process of unraveling your work is called “frogging” because you have to “rip it, rip it.”  It’s terribly punny.  For the next hour, sitting on the couch with the glow of the tree lights reflecting off the windows, I began frogging the shawl.

It was painful at first, seeing all of the work slowly disappearing.  After a little bit I began to watch the stitches disappear one at a time.  I began to notice the pattern, the yarn overs, the knit two togethers, the purls. I saw places where I had messed up the pattern and had to add a stitch at the end of a row.  I found where my first skein had run out and I had clumsily started a second.  Watching the unraveling of the knitted work was fascinating, because I could see all of the work that had gone into the project, the errors and the fixes.  I finished by rolling all of the yarn into a large ball and sat there for several minutes just staring at the big ball of potential.  I was eager to get started, to learn from the mistakes I made the first time, and to watch the shawl rebuild.

I began to think about how each New Year is like a large ball of yarn and potential.  We spend the final days of the year unraveling the decisions of the last year.  We consider our triumphs, our defeats, our moments of joy and those of heartache.  We wind it all up into a large ball determined to do something different or better or healthier with the New Year. 

It is no secret that 2017 has been a difficult year for our family.  It started with the loss of a friend in March, many illnesses, hospital and inpatient stays, surgeries, unwise counsel, and disappointments.   It would be easy to unravel all of this year and set that ball of yarn on fire.  I’m pretty sure it would be super flammable, so it might even be bring some satisfaction to watch it burn… 

But what I realized staring at this large ball of yarn was that if I just wrote off 2017, I would lose all of the lessons that I learned from the following year and the potential to go into 2018 more prepared.  So instead of rehashing all of the difficulties that our family has walked through, I want to share some of what I see as I unravel the year.

I have learned to be more present and to let myself feel pain.  I am learning that I don’t have to silver line every single cloud and that “just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.”  I have learned to be bolder and braver.  I am learning how to fight for myself and others.   I have learned that even in the hardest moments, there is peace.  I have learned that I am stronger than I ever knew that I was.  And I have been reminded that I am so blessed by my family and friends that God has surrounded us with. 

So as I sit here in the final hours of this year, I’m now holding a large ball wound up of the yarn from 2017 ready to make something beautiful of 2018.  It doesn’t mean that there won’t be hardships, disappointments, or mourning.   I can’t imagine a year without them.  But I am now more confident that those things shape us and mold us into stronger people and that those hard moments are surrounded by moments of great joy.  So here’s to 2018.  May it be a masterpiece!

Heritage, Hate, and the Juvenilization of Free Speech

Someone posted a link to the following article on Facebook this morning.  Unfortunately the link seems to be having issues, quite possibly because of the traffic it is receiving.  So, I wanted to post it here to share. 

 I would like to add, growing up in Louisiana I very often saw the rebel flag flying above the tailgates of pick up trucks, on hats, on bumper stickers, you name it.  I also grew up in a school system that was fairly diverse and with parents who taught me to love all people.  Some of my friends were those with rebel flags and argued it was "heritage, not hate" and I believed them.  Simply speaking, I believe that the majority of people I knew truly felt that way and saw it as a Southern symbol.  Many of them still do.  

Moving to Oklahoma for several years changed me in a lot of ways.  We joined an awesome church that provided a lot of opportunities to have open and engaging conversations which allowed us to open our minds and learn more from a variety of backgrounds and people.  Moving back to the South to Mississippi was even more eye opening to me.  I began to see racism and segregation that I had never noticed growing up.  Whether it was there and I missed it or Mississippi seems to be worse, that can wait for a future discussion.  However, it is deeply ingrained in the culture here.  The more I have thought about this issue  over the past couple of years, the more I have come to the realization that is shared below.  However, the post below pulls all the thoughts that I keep having and puts them into a coherent message.  For those who disagree, that is okay.  We can agree to disagree.  But I hope this article will challenge people and perhaps they may see this issue from a different perspective.  ~Jaimie })i({

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Heritage, Hate and the Juvenilization of Free Speech  taken from http://www.organicstudentministry.com/

I am a Southerner.  I have lived in 3 cities in my life; 18 years in a rural town in North Alabama, 5 in Atlanta and 12 in Birmingham, Alabama.  I grew up middle class, white in a small racially divided town.   I grew up in a culture where rebel flags were flown off the back of pick up trucks, they were worn on hats and raised on makeshift poles in people’s yards.  I was taught that these were symbols of heritage, reminders of who we were and who we are.

I grew up with parents that used the word “nigger” in regular conversation, when they were angry and when they talked about the people who lived in “pepper town”.

One of my earliest memories of my dad is him coming home from work covered in wisps of cotton, a machinist in the local cotton mill, wearing a white t-shirt and his black, fishnet work hat embossed with a rebel flag.  I remember being very young and carefully helping him place a bumper sticker on his lime green, late 70’s beat up pick-up truck.

The sticker was a rebel flag with the words “Keep It Flyin”

I remember being in 4th grade and calling another little boy, an African American 5th grader, “nigger” because that is what he was in my world.  A nigger.

This is my pedigree.  

The school principal, who was also my baseball and basketball coach heard me say this and called me into his office.

“Why did you call him that?” he asked

“Because that is what he is,” I told him with out flinching.

“What do you think that means?” he asked.

“It is another word for a black,” I said (it is important to note that we did not call them “black people.” I think subconsciously that was a little too humanizing for us.  Calling them “blacks” was more simple, more to the point and noted them for what they were, a color not a person.

My principal spent the next two weeks with me (in detention) talking with me about that word, what it means and what it does to people when they hear it.  He spent 2 weeks, every day with me in his office talking, working through these ideas and helping me understand that words and symbols carry deep, impacting meaning and they should be handled with great care and respect.

He was my salvation.

He saved me from the depravity of racism, the ignorance of inequality and the suffocating quicksand of hatred.

Years later when I realized what I had done, how I had been raised to think and who I was going to be, my stomach sank.

Thursday morning I felt that sinking all over again.  I felt it because I began to hear the voices of my childhood in the comment sections, the Facebook posts and in the justifying soliloquies of the defenders of what they call “heritage.”  Outrage over the rebel flag began almost immediately as the state of South Carolina lowered all of its flags to half mast, all except the rebel flag.  The racial fissure in our country’s bedrock began to pull apart again.  People talked of heritage, history, southern pride.  Posts were shared explaining in great detail how the civil war was not about slavery, “only 1/4 to 1/3 of southerners even owned slaves” cites one story.

I love how the word “only” is used to try subdue the gag reflex of the soul.

Contrary to what you might think, I am not here to argue with these historical claims.  I really do not care what they “historically” may or may not have stood for.  Are rebel flags appropriate?  Sure, in movies, museums and history books that recount the civil war it makes sense because it has context.  Which is the problem we are facing today, context.

In graduate school I took this incredible class on the study of semiotics.  Semiotics is a discipline that studies symbols, words and their adoptive and adaptive meanings.  One of the primary principles of semiotics is that there is never a pure meaning that any symbol carries intrinsically.  In other words, a symbol’s meaning is always being redefined, interpreted and evolving.

Take the swastika for example.  It was a symbol that was very prevalent in eastern religions and even early Christianity.  You can find it in unbelievable amounts of ancient art, pottery and architecture.  It was benign and decorative.

That is the heritage and history of the swastika.

That is until it was adopted by the SS and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.  It is a symbol and the definition of that symbol changed, and changed dramatically.  It was assigned a new definition, a definition of hate and genocide.

Here is the problem with the “it’s not racist, it is a symbol of our heritage” argument.  It makes assumptions about the static nature of symbols that are simply wrong.

The meaning of symbols are fluid, they are never static.  When a majority of people understand the symbol to point to another definition then the definition of that symbol changes.

When KKK members adopted it as the symbol of their hate, it changed.

When it was waved proudly as a banner for segregationists, it changed.

When it became synonymous with burning crosses, white hoods and ropes thrown over magnolia trees looped around lifeless brown necks.  It. Changed.

When a 21 year old young man from South Carolina writes a manifesto on his website proclaiming in horrifying detail his hatred for all minorities, posts pictures clutching in one hand the rebel flag and a gun in the other just before he goes out and kills 9 innocent people in a prayer meeting… it changed.

If you want to wear the “stars and bars” on a t-shirt or hat, be my guest.

If you want to fly it proudly on your lawn, go ahead.

If you want to make it a law that it has to fly on the lawn of your state capitol, feel free.

But know this…

When you do this you are throwing your lot in with racists, segregationists, white supremacists, neo-nazis, bigots and murderers.  You will be counted, not among a group of people supposedly celebrating “heritage” but among those whose lips drip with the venom of hate.

You have free speech, that is true, but that speech is not without consequence.  Consequences like what we saw a few days ago in Charleston.

Let me be clear the rebel flag did not cause that man to kill those 9 people meeting for prayer and worship.  It is just the primary symbol of a sick and vile sub-culture that produces people like that man who killed those 9 people meeting for prayer and worship.

I know that culture; I am a refugee and dissenter from it and an organizer against it.

Make no mistake: it is not heritage it is hate.

A Reminder

About three years ago, Albany and I were shopping at Old Navy. As we were talking she asked when she was going to get a little sister. I had to explain that I didn’t know, but I hoped soon. Albany told me we needed to pray about it. I told her we would. She stopped in the middle of the little girl’s section, placed her hand on me and began praying for a little sister. There was a part of me that was slightly embarrassed she was praying in the middle of the store. There was a larger part of me that was so floored by her faith. When she said “amen,” she turned to me and said we needed to buy something for her little sister. I hesitated, trying to explain we could get something once her sister was here. Albany sighed and explained, “Mommy, she will need something when she gets here.”

 I directed her to the clearance section and she found a little, pink shirt with Rapunzel on it. I asked her if she thought maybe we should get something smaller. She declared the shirt she picked out was perfect and we headed towards check out.

 We prayed and tried to get pregnant for a year. As we prayed during the next year, we began feeling the pull towards adoption. We took the classes and got licensed. Then we waited another year before finally receiving the call.

 I love these kids. They feel like our kids. We are adjusting well. Albany is doing incredible. We’ve had some little bickering and a few hurt feelings, but she seems to take it in stride. For the most part, it is natural sibling stuff. Little Man is a lot like Albany. He is a very loving child and has such a sweet spirit. He is more introverted than Albany, but also a little more rambunctious. He loves lots of snuggles, especially from his Mommy.

 Sassy is a challenge. She has some massive temper tantrums and can be downright defiant. Just this morning, it was a struggle to get her to sit in her seat and finish her breakfast instead of skipping around the house, directing everyone else on what they should be doing. She will be a great leader if we can guide her the right direction. Please don't get me wrong. I am so glad she is here and I love her dearly. She is also so loving, hilarious, and LOVES to help out around the house. It's just that adjusting to Sassy's needs can be very difficult at times.

 This morning as I was pulling jackets out of the playroom closet so the kids can head to school on this chilly day, I noticed the shirt we bought three years ago stuffed into the closet. I pulled it out and showed Andrew as he entered the room. Over the years I have almost given the shirt away to friends who have little girls. Something has always held me back.

 Even though Sassy is 5, she wears a 3T. Her favorite movie besides Frozen? Tangled.

This morning as I showed Andrew the 3T, Rapunzel shirt, I was reminded of that moment in Old Navy. I realized that Sassy is the little sister Albany and I prayed for 3 years ago. She is the one we have been praying for the past 3 years.  She is supposed to be a part of our family. We never even considered having a boy, but God blessed us with Little Man, too. And on the days where I feel weary or overwhelmed or frustrated, I want to remember this moment. I want to remember that God has a plan for all of this and that we get to be a part of these children’s restoration story. I want to remember that Sassy is the one we have prayed for and that God answered and blessed us abundantly.

Splinters

My hubby and I were working on refinishing an old dresser this weekend. As I was sliding the newly painted and distressed drawers back into their places, it happened. I got a splinter! At that moment, I became consumed with this tiny sliver of wood wedged into the tip of my ring finger. At that moment, I felt nothing else, just pain. I showed Andrew my affliction (he was soooo sympathetic). After a search, I couldn't find a pair of tweezers, so reluctantly I went back to working and just tried to ignore it. It mostly worked, but every now and then I would pick up something or move something and it would hit that finger and the pain came back.

Hurt is like a splinter. Whether someone lied to you, or misused you, or whatever it is, the hurt can pierce you like a splinter. You can ignore it for so long, but if you do not actually dig it out and deal with, it will continue to hurt you. Maybe not constantly, but a time will come when something comes up and brings the pain flooding back. If left too long, a splinter can become infected and cause all sorts of health problems. The same is true for hurt. If you allow it stay in your life, it can consume and overtake you.

To get rid of a splinter, you have to take some tweezers and dig it out. The process sometimes takes awhile to get it all out and sometimes it is very painful. So is dealing with our hurts. Sometimes it takes talking to the person that hurt you, sometimes it takes seeing a counselor, whatever it is, we each have our own way to get through hurt.

While I never know when I may get a splinter, it would be ridiculous for me to take my bare hands and rub them over that old dresser. I would be smart to use gloves to handle the dresser, to prepare myself and protect myself. Likewise there are some situations we can not get out of, like maybe a family situation. While you may not be able to completely remove yourself from the situation, you can prepare and protect yourself. Whether it is limiting visits, standing up for yourself, or spending time in prayer before a visit. But there are some situations that are so hurtful or abusive that the best thing to do is to remove yourself entirely. Yet sometimes even after doing so, there is still hurt, while not new, it continues to linger.

The thing we must remember though, to get through the hurt, we must get all of the splinter out. Unforgiveness is like that little fragment of a splinter that is wedged down deep. It's the part that becomes infected when not removed. Forgiveness is not saying that what happened was okay. It's not about allowing the person to hurt you again. It's really not about the other person at all. It is deciding not to hold that hurt you've experienced against that person any longer. And it is not letting the hurt have any hold over you any longer. This is the step we most often forget, yet we truly can not heal until we forgive.

What splinters do you need to deal with?

Sweet Child Of Mine

When I was younger, I remember my mom saying she hoped I had a child just like me (I think that was supposed to be like the mother's curse or something like that haha.) But yep, I had a spitting image of myself. The older she gets, the more obvious it is to me. People often tell me they wish they knew what was going on in Albany's head. I know...

I'm growing tiresome of finding stickers all over the house. The walls, the headboards (mine and hers), doors, chairs, the bathtub, and even the toilet. Albany and I have had multiple conversations about where stickers go. (ON PAPER!) and yet the other morning I walked into the guest bathroom to find My Little Pony stickers adorning walls, fixtures, etc. I quickly called her into the bathroom and using my stern voice told her stickers do NOT go on anything except paper. With one of the most pathetic (and honest) face she looked at me and said, "But I was just decorating." Feeling rather cold and heartless, I made her unstick the stickers and then sit in time out for a couple of minutes. Later that evening she found yet another page of stickers and asked if she could use them. I told her only on paper. To which she grinned and replied, "Yes, your majesty!" and then skipped off. I know her well enough to know she wasn't being disrespectful, just being Albany!

Later I was reminded of a story my mom often tells. My mom once entered my room when I was probably about Albany's age and noticed there was a Care Bear magnet on my wall. Figuring I must have found a stud, she went to pull it off only to find I had Elmer glued it to the wall. She then noticed around my room at about a 3 foot level were puzzle pieces, pictures, and sheet music. I remember that on television the kids always had super decorated rooms. I'm sure I told my mom, "I was just decorating!"

I guess things come full circle. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. :-)