As a child my mom used to drag me to church. Sometimes I wanted to go sometimes I put up a fight because my dad didn’t go to church and I wanted to spend the day doing whatever he was going to do. My family vacation every summer was church camp. Looking back on childhood, I put my mom through a lot of unnecessary nonsense. And yes I have apologized to her. I didn’t have the model parents that some were blessed with. My parents fought a lot, my dad was hardly ever around. He worked a lot but also had a secret that kept him away. And sometimes I understand the choices he made, but those choices also hurt me. My mom at some point in her life threw herself into God and the church. Which isn’t a bad thing! I wasn’t taught how to love myself or how worthy I truly was. My mom taught us to love everyone, not to hate anyone and if we disliked someone the best thing to do was to pray for them. I could never go to my mom when I had a fight with a friend or breakup. Her responses were always “you don’t need a boyfriend, you need to pray” or just simply ” you need to pray more to God is your friend”. As a child these things are super hard to do when you’re fit in at school. These things aren’t what I wanted to hear.! Especially when you aren’t feeling loved at home. Again as a child you just want your mom to listen and hug you and tell you it’s going to be okay.
Fast forward, I spend the next over twenty years in and out of church. In and out of relationships. I was a walking mess and didn’t really know it at the time. I tried to be a different mom to Haley and Preston. I taught them about God, took them to church. Not faithfully like my mom did, but we went and they know who God is. It took me a long time to figure out how to love myself and that I’m worthy to be loved. And honestly It was five years ago that God stepped in and showed me! I put myself through a lot after I left home at eighteen! Trying to find a man who would just love me, and give me the fairy tale kind of love. But I assure I never found that! They always gave up on me! Then I would give up too. I don’t know if I loved it too hard and was too clingy or just not a lovable person! I was unable to show Haley and Preston how to love in the process. That was hard to face when Preston called me out on it! Asking why I never showed him how to love someone! My answer was hard, yet simple. I couldn’t show you something I didn’t know how to do myself! It was gut wrenching. But my son has finely figured it out and I’m so proud of him!
Rose, is struggling to love herself! She is struggling with if she is worthy to be loved. She thinks everyone hates her and she is a disappointment. I’ve talked and cried and I’m sure screamed at her that she is worthy of being loved and is loved! I told her that until she learns to love herself it’s going to be hard to love anyone else. But being young she stands in her own way right now. I mean she doesn’t have the model parents who go to church together and worked as one trying to provide for her. Everything that Clayton and I do is separate. We split the bills, I pay for the groceries. We take care of the gas in our own cars. I cook and clean up. He does things outside. But when it comes to Rose, well, it’s all me! I take her to church, make sure she takes a bath and eats. I put her to bed. He doesn’t tell her goodnight! He does pick her up from school two days a week. But Rose and Clayton don’t have the relationship that she sees her friends have with their dads. And I can tell that it bothers her. She knows that her dad is sick. And all she wants is to be loved by him before anything bad happens. And sadly I can’t talk to Clayton about any of this because he thinks that paying the bills is all the love any of us needs. Clayton never learned how to love himself.
I’ve thought a lot about my past and the choices I made. I think about Clayton’s past and the choices I think he made. Neither one of us had the model loving parents. No one to show us what it takes to love another and what it takes to make a relationship work. Or even how to love ourselves. But the one thing I had that he didn’t, was a mom who drugged my butt to church and did the best she knew how to show me God and that He was the answer to any and all things I could ever need in life. Love, happiness, peace, joy, protection. Clayton loves Rose. He just doesn’t know how to truly show it, so she thinks he doesn’t love her. It’s a very hard thing to watch! I mean on the weekends Clayton wakes up and reaches over tries to rub any part of my body he can touch. And it’s honestly starting to just make me mad! He says “I’m just trying to love on you”. No sir you are not! You are trying to fill your needs! And yours alone! Showing love isn’t just on the weekends when you wake up. It’s holding my hand in the care, or when we are walking into a store. Love is when you help cook and clean up supper no matter how bad you feel! It’s telling your daughter goodnight. It’s doing things she asks of you, even if you don’t want to or feel up to it. Love is so much more than paying bills and reaching over to be disrespecting your wife, knowing she doesn’t like being woken up that way after ten years of telling you!
Our time on earth is shorter than we think. It may feel like forever but it’s not. God does have all the answers if we just turn to Him and tell Him all about our troubles. He will show you how to love Him as well as yourself! And I know that there are times you feel like God isn’t hearing you or listening to you! But I assure you He is! Everything is in His time! God knows what we are ready for and what we are not! I think I’m ready to be a single mom again, but I know that God has a plan and I know that He is preparing future things so that I am ready! If you don’t love yourself, please talk to God about it! Ya’ll work it out together! He will show you just like He showed me! God loves us and is our safe place! He sits on the rock and protects us from our enemies! I will sing for the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that have established your faithfulness in heaven itself. Psalm 89:1-2
