Remember this post? Well, the author contacted me and wants to use some of my comments in the upcoming issue of Stepping Stones.
Cool, huh?
My question is, how did he find me?
Blessings!
Hannah
Oh, and I didn’t get any compensation for the review, or the links. 
Just FYI.
Disclaimer: I love my parents very very much. I love my step-parents very very much. This post is in no way meant to hurt my wonderful parental units. It is, however, meant to give an older child’s point of view on the very hurtful nature of divorce. (All) Parents everywhere need to know what happens to the heart of a child when they make choices that change a child’s forever. Read with caution, but with an open heart.
Disclaimer cont’d: I understand that there are times when a divorce IS in the best interest of the family, such as abuse and other sever issues. This post is NOT referencing those situations. If you have been through a situation like that, I pray God’s strength and healing all over you.
Dear Parents, (All parents. Everywhere. Christian parents. Non-Christian parents. Everyone.)
Divorce sucks! It hurts children. It hurts young children and adult children. Even when the divorce happened so long ago that you can’t remember what it was like when your family was whole, it still hurts. Even when, ESPECIALLY when your children are grown and on their own, their hearts are still healing, and still breaking. It effects us. It changes how we think and how we feel FOREVER! It changes how we see love, and how we see marriage, and children, and promises, and lies, and truth…and God. It brings fear at the strangest, most inopportune times. It tempts us to quit, because you did. Divorce hurts.
Please don’t think that you can avoid this hurt by waiting to get divorced until your children are older. It doesn’t help. It hurts worse. Imagine being a young adult, having all your memories being rooted in a wonderful, though not perfect, two parent family and then suddenly having a parent call you and tell you it’s all over. Will that be easier? To suddenly look on all your childhood memories with sadness? To suddenly have to worry about how your own kids are going to have to visit grandma and grandpa separately? Is it fair to your adult child to show them that even after 30 years of marriage, that it wasn’t worth it? It doesn’t make sense to us that whatever got you through 30 years of marriage suddenly isn’t enough. It doesn’t make frickin’ sense!
If you were a parent who sat down with your kids and told them that divorce was not an option for your family, if you made the point to tell them that divorce is wrong, if you took the time to impress on your child’s heart that God wants something better for His people, if you did all that and then decided to go against your own words and get divorced, you better have the courage to sit down again, look your children in the eyes, and explain to them why your words meant nothing….because your kids were listening. They remember. They will remember for years.
Don’t worry, your kids still love you. They are hurting, and will be for years, but they still love you. Don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect the words “I forgive you.” to come cheaply. Please, expect their forgiveness. Understand that you need it from them, even if the divorce was not your choice. It’s something that their hearts are dealing with, and that’s the Holy Spirit’s job.
Don’t put them in the middle. I know this is commonplace to say, but it’s so true. Even adult kids can not handle hearing hurtful things about one of their parents, whom they love. Being honest about hurts is fine, and can be helpful, but hurtful words, especially about someone else that your child loves, are still hurtful.
I write this because I have a friend that is hurting right now, and her parents need to know that she is hurting. I write this because I discovered a couple of weeks ago that there are only 4 people in our entire home group of 20+ whose parents are still together. I write this because my generation needs to heal from our own hurts so we can stop the hurts of our children before they happen…again.
Lord, help us heal. All of us.
Blessings!
Hannah
when he jumped out that window.
Jeremiah has had two fantastic days.
2 perfect school notes.
2 days ended at the top two rungs of his ladder.
Tomorrow he gets to play video games as long as he stays up at the top two rungs.
My job will be to help him not sabotage himself. To help him slow down and think things through. To help him not over react when he makes mistakes.
Thank you all for all your prayers.
Blessings!
Hannah
Or
No, Timmy, he didn’t bounce.
Or
Thank God for snow banks
Or
……..
Okay, so here’s the low down. Jeremiah, as you know if you’ve been keeping up with this story line, has been having a very hard time lately. Ever since the day after Christmas he’s been off kilter and has had a very hard time being part of the family…literally. He can’t handle family dynamics, and showing respect for Mom and Dad is definitely too hard. Also, there has been a lot of sneaking and stealing, mostly of food, but sometimes of electronic items.
We finally installed alarms the other day, which has definitley helped deter a lot of the sneaking, just because he knows he will be caught. He does it mostly for the thrill of victory, not really the items specified, so alarms make it absolutley no fun.
Well…last night was a particularly bad night. He was trying everything in his power to engage Hubby and myself in a battle over minor things, so finally he was sent up to his room…again…until he made the choice to be kind and respectful. He never came down. He went to sleep. Which was fine, but odd. He ALWAYS wants me to tuck him in. Even if it’s been the crapiest night where he’s been cussing me out like crazy and says he hates me and wants to leave forever etc… he ALWAYS wants to be tucked in. Well, not last night. So I let him sleep.
I stayed up for quite a while waiting for Hubby to get home from his dad’s, so I didn’t get to bed until a little after 1. Kaleb woke me at 1:30 and wanted to talk, a conversation filled with lots of answered prayers which I will blog about later. Anywho, I didn’t get to go back to sleep until about 2:30.Before I fell asleep, the Lord laid Jeremiah on my heart, so I prayed our usual bed time prayer, that God would guard Jeremiah with His angels and give him a good nights sleep with good dreams about God’s perfect kingdom. Then I slept.
4:00 AM Kaleb bursts through the bedroom door, and in classic Kaleb style, doesn’t skip a beat waiting for me to wake up, he jumps right into the reason he was disturbing my sleep.
Hubby:Do you have any idea what’s going on?
Me: What?
Hubby: Did you hear that thump?
Me: Huh?
Hubby: He jumped out the window! Jeremiah jumped out the frickin’ window and is hobbling around!
Me: Is he okay?
Hubby: No! He’s limping and saying his back hurts and his rib hurts. He jumped out the second story frickin’ window!
Hubby was at a near panic. Jeremiah was sitting calmly at the kitchen table, so I focused on calming Hubby first.
So….apparently, since alarms are on the doors, Jeremiah decided in his 10 year old brain that it would be a good idea to jump out of his second story bedroom window onto the snowbank below, a good 18-20 foot fall. The reason? He wanted to sneak food. Any food. It didn’t matter. He fell butt first into the snow. We can still see the imprint. Kaleb heard the thump, but thought i was our neighbor dropping wood. It took a good 20 minutes before Jeremiah hobbled through the front door and tried to sneak back upstairs. YES! He tried to sneak BACK UPSTAIRS! Hubby heard wimpering and discovered the limping lad.
So…off to the ER we go at 4 in the morning. He was not walking well, but he could walk. Thank you, Father! We got to the ER a little before 5 because the roads were slick due to the freezing rain we’ve been getting. The doctor came out to the car to evaluate Miah and they brought a stretcher out to the car just to be sure.
The doctor we had was amazing. His name was David, and he looked and sounded like an older version of my older brother. He asked all the right questions, watched Miah walk, and asked more questions. One of the big things he wanted to know was whether Miah would be reliable enough to tell me if the pain was getting worse or if it changed. Umm, NO! I don’t know if this is a RAD symptom or what, but Miah could be playing outside and come in bleeding and it wouldn’t phaze him one bit, but if he bumps into someone he will act like he is dying. No. Not reliable. In fact, he didn’t tell the doctor about his hurting rib AND told the doctor he wasn’t on any medications AND told the doctor that he jumps out his window all the time.
The doctor ordered x-rays since Miah was still walking well, but when they came back he couldn’t tell if what he was seeing was simply Miah’s growth plates in his spine, or if there were chips, so he ended up ordering a CT scan anyway.
We waited a while for the results because apparently they have to send them off to Minnesota.
While we waited, Jeremiah started to get loud and a little wild. I told him he needed to lay quietly until the doctor came back. He asked me if I was mad that he wasn’t hurt. I told him that of coarse I was happy he wasn’t hurt. I was mad because he jumped out his bedroom window.
Any questions from me or the doctor about what happened and why resulted in deliberate rabbit trails. “Oh look, my hand looks like a chameleon.” or “I never know’d there was such a thing as hot chocolate.” Yup. Uh huh. And no, he didn’t have a concussion.
So amazingly, our little guy came out of his daredevil sneak attempt nearly completely unscaved. Bruises on his bum. That’s it. Not even a cracked tail bone. He’s spending the day in his room resting, but has already come down once with “I’m feeling much better!” Uh huh. Yup. Go rest!
So, what to do now? Well, alarms on the windows I guess. We are almost wishing he was a little hurt, because now the boy thinks he is super man.
Lord, thank you so much for protecting our son. Show us how to handle this in an effective, loving way. Thank you, Father.
Anyone had a jumper before? Help, please!
Blessings!
Hannah
The alarms we ordered came in yesterday. YAY!!! They are the same ones that were used when we worked at the RTC , so we knew how to install them AND that they would be loud enough to wake us…well…ME…if a certain 10 year old decided to sneak down in the middle of the night.
Jeremiah is actually excited about the alarms. He said that they will help him prove to himself that he doesn’t have to steal. Does it really take an alarm on the door to do that?
Of coarse he had to get one last sneak in last night while I was taking the dogs out before heading to bed. I hadn’t set the alarm yet because Rachel still needed to head upstairs to bed. I should have known better. I came in from outside and heard some thump thumps and then noticed the dogs looking up the stairs. Of coarse Jeremiah absolutely did NOT sneak down stairs and was fast asleep sucking his thumb (chewing on his fingers). Of coarse the thumps I heard were absolutely NOT him. Well, that lasted a whole five seconds.
An hour and lots of screaming (him), hugs, and kisses (me) later he finally told me whole truth. Such interesting things he snuck in those few minutes. He’s definitely creative.
Now some may say I should have just let it be. But even though he doesn’t like being caught, because of the consequences involved, he doesn’t like NOT being caught either. It makes him feel unsafe. He NEEDS to be caught, just like he NEEDS to know those alarms will be on.
Oh, child. I love you.
You may just give me an aneurysm, but I love you.
Blessings!
Hannah
Of “When the Cradle is Empty: Answering Tough Questions about Infertility” by John and Sylvia Van Regenmorter (Say that 10 times fast)
Okay, so I ordered this book on Amazon the other day because, as you well know, I’ve been struggling lately with how to handle my thoughts and feelings about infertility. I picked it up to start reading today and only got through the first chapter, but I can already tell that this book will be very straight forward, real, and practical.
First of all, the authors are from Sioux Falls, SD, which just happens to be my home town. Woot woot! So I knew we were off to a good start.
After a good introduction explaining the background of the authors and a little of their story, the first chapter starts off by talking about the journey that is infertility. The chapter walks through the different stages or steps that many experience on this journey. As soon as I started reading I knew that this book was going to challenge my heart to some realities about myself that I would have to chew on. The first step resonated right away, and the more I kept reading, the more my heart screamed “Hey! This is me! How did they get a microphone into my brain?”
Okay, so the first step is Fog, and the second sentence of the chapter says “You may have used ‘the pill’ for a year or two while you settled into married life and set up a savings account. But you’ve been off birth control for some time and nothing has happened.”
Well, besides the whole savings account thing, that pretty much has described our situation. I went on BC as a very young bride because that made sense. There was no reason to suspect anything was wrong, so of coarse that’s what I did. The pill made me very sick, so after a year and a half I stopped taking it. I didn’t have a cycle for two months, but not biggie, that’s common. But then it didn’t happen for 6 months, and then 9, and then I went an entire year without having a single cycle. WHAT?!?!
That’s the fog.
The next few steps are “The realization”, “Downplaying the problem”, “The Shock”, “Denial and Anger” (Oh, so been there!), “Guilt and Depression”, and the stage I am currently in, “Weariness.” The authors say that it is common to flip flop back and forth between the last two. Yup. Uh huh.
What I loved is that I was reading my own words, so it makes me feel not so crazy. Wow. Other women have gone through these same feelings and SURVIVED!!!
Okay, so tomorrow, maybe I will be able to digest chapter two. I will let you know how that goes.
Blessings!
Hannah
Week 1 of our familiy’s better eating is done. Phew! Besides the fact that I am having to be a lot more creative and spend more time planning our menus, I have come out relatively stress free. The other members of the family are adjusting surprisingly well, but they are still skeptical about making this a long term plan. Hubby person expressed last night that changing our eating seems like another stress on top of everything else right now. I bought him no sugar added fudge-sicles today.
So here are the major changes we have made on our road to healthier bodies and minds.
We do eat a lot of salads though, and I found out that our local restraunt supply store sells baby spinach for a ridiculously low price. Like $5.99 for a 3 lb bag. You can’t even get a lb for that at the local grocery store. That’s a whole lot of spinach. I’m trying to like green smoothies, but…ick. Trying to figure that out.So that’s the general plan. I am so thankful that I love all kinds of veggies and fruits already. Good job, Mom and Dad!
A huge help for creative ideas has been Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. There’s a recipe in there for home made ketchup, which, sadly, is a huge source of HFCS. Ick. But I LOVE ketchup!!! I’ll let you know how it is. Anywho, I love that book.
So, all you healthy eating families out there, share the wealth of knowledge. What do your meals look like?
Blessings!
Hannah
I’m tired. I have to pee, but I don’t have the energy to go across the house at this moment. My knee hurts. My shoulder hurts. Basket holds take a toll on my shoulder. Too many in the past few days. I hate them. Well, I hate having to use them. They are quite handy, actually.
I like Narnia. I love the analogies and the redemption. I hate how wolves always get a bad rap. They are such beautiful creatures.
Is anyone missing a very large lab/golden retriever mix? He’s at our house, again. He keeps looking in the window. I call him Dukie. What’s that from? It’s a cartoon, I know, but I can’t remember which one.
I want to make love to my husband, but he’s very distracted and stressed right now. I’m sad about a lot of things and need his comfort. He is such a comfort, but also the source of a lot of what I need comforting from. How does that work? Oh yeah! I LOVE HIM! Love is hard. Love is very very very hard.
Love is not “like”. I do not like my 10 year old much right now. He’s causing so much chaos and hurt and stress. He’s distracting my husband from the work he needs to get done which means he’s more stressed and not able to connect with me. I need my husband to connect with me.
Dukie is whining at our front door to come in. I would, but he is not fixed, and neither are my girls. Not a good combo. Zoe really wants him to come in. He’s scratching at our door. Zoe really wants him to come in. Nippy is growling at him. Of coarse.
I could use some of Aslan’s deep magic right now. Oh yeah! I have it! Holy Spirit, come.
I don’t know how to get Jeremiah to care. I can’t make him. It’s impossible. He needs therapy, but our new therapist (an hour away) doesn’t have an opening till the 28th.
Pray for us. Pray for our marriage, that we would be able to connect to each other and not be driven apart. Pray that I would know how to honor my hubby, and yet, pray that I will know how to handle when we disagree. When his defense for me goes too far. When his stress boils over.
I need some peace.
After 19 days of constant tantrums…Hours and hours of stair time…Phone calls from neighbors and teachers…new levels of anger and rage….
Jeremiah FINALLY decided that it was time to have a good night.
YAY!!!!
Our caseworker came over after school yesterday and had a chat with the little guy. They “high-fived” on the agreement that Jeremiah DESERVED to have FUN and needed to let himself make good choices so he could have fun.
Something clicked. At least for last night. He was marvelous. He genuinely smiled, which we haven’t seen in a long time. He even cooperated with Gabe while doing chores. That’s a YAY for both boys! YAY! Jeremiah accepted feedback pleasantly, without a melt down or angry faces. He even washed properly in the shower THE. FIRST. TIME!
I breathed a sigh of relief. No. More like a sigh of JOY!
This morning I was not sure what to expect. He didn’t sneak during the night, so that was good, but he was hard to get up and ended up losing ladder steps for being mean and rude when asked about what happened to his school note yesterday.
I’m hoping for a good afternoon.
We are still struggling with what to do about all the lies. That’s the toughy. He doesn’t like it when he’s caught and ends up getting really angry, even if there are no consequences given. Still working on that.
Anywho, pray for us. Pray that this might be the beginning of the light to the end of these days of darkness.
Blessings!
Hannah
Hoping for those who are losing hope.
Thanking God for those who are safe.
Asking our Father to be with His children.
Claiming PEACE in Jesus’ name. Peace over even the very earth they stand on.
Waiting on how the Lord will bring His good, even out of this tragedy.
Holding on to His promises.
Join with me. Pray for Haiti.
Blessings!
Hannah
