No "Home" For Christmas
In Murfreesboro, TN a journalism student at the local State University writes a weekly column in the city newspaper. He takes a picture of a random person he meets and asks the person to give him advise for his two young sons. This week the random person he met was my pastor of our local church who has two young daughters. Our pastor told him to tell his sons to "put Christ first" in their life. Whether or not this will be advise he gives to his son, I do not know, but the article did get printed in our local newspaper with the title "Christ First."
In reflecting on seeing this article's headline and our pastor's picture on the front page of the lifestyle section, I thought about how this was my one goal in raising my two sons and daughter. I was going to raise them differently than I experienced as a child.
I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I grew up in terror.
When I was in the fifth grade, we moved one block away to the main street entering the city from the Mississippi River bridge, Terry Parkway. Even though the city was still officially Gretna, the people who lived on this street preferred to say they lived in Terrytown. It sounded more classy than old Gretna and it was at that time a big development company came in to build new homes on Terry Parkway. Until this point, only a few "mansion-type" properties existed on this prominent street. My parents bought one of these newly produced homes that were exactly like one of the five choice model homes available by the builder. We were moving up to a four bedroom, two bath house that had a living room, study, walk-in kitchen, nook--the size of a dining room, a living room, foyer and front receiving room.
Changing homes did not make a big difference in my life, because we were still living in a torturously, abusive family. This bigger home only provided me with more rooms to memorize the horrible episodes of abuse: rope-noose hangings, a decade of incest, gladiator-style boxing, lashings with belt buckles and hangers, hours of calisthenics, guns held to the temple of the head, and so much more violence like this. We lived in literal fear every day that someone would die. It was not a home, but a prison, our own "concentration" camp.
Christmas was no different in my childhood home. It was not a joyous time but a guaranteed day like every other day that there would be abuse. The wrong gift was bought; the piece of dessert was missing; someone said something wrong or looked the wrong way. We never knew what would bring the terror about but one thing was certain: it would come and someone would be accused and punished with unthinkable abuse.
Today, I am a mother of my own children: two teenagers and a young adult. My oldest is twenty-one. He is my first born son. I recall being in a missionary service singing and feeling him kick in my womb. It was there and many other times that I dedicated him to God. I had become a Christian in my young twenties when I heard the Holy Spirit speak to my soul the words, "Jesus is God." Instantly, I decided to give my life to follow and obey God.
In the years that followed, I married, tried to reconcile and forgive my parents for the abuse and to build a family relationship, not really knowing what that was. In my ninth year of marriage, after I graduated from college with a teaching degree in Early Childhood Education, I had my own child. The only thing I wanted to do was to be a mother, a wife and to serve God. The most important message I wanted my children to know was Jesus was God. I wanted them to have a personal relationship with Him and to become whoever He created them to be. My husband and I raised them with this sole goal.
So when I hit a mental and emotional rock-bottom, I was almost put into a mental institution, but instead my husband begged me to be treated out-patient from our home. Therefore, I entered into what became ten years of trauma therapy and took psychotropic medication. I struggled to hang on. So many of the trauma therapies were new and at that point being used on war veterans. I was among a new group of mentally ill patients being treated with EMDR and brainspotting. My children had to deal with the fallout. There were no relatives to help: no aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents that stepped in to be the loving, supportive network of stability my children needed.
We were members of a church, but no one wanted to get involved. I shared my story with the pastors but I think it scared them. My condition was too messy; and something that the churches at that time did not know much about. I hurt to think of the loss and fear my children experienced in the chaos and void of having a mother that was not all there, that was disassociated dealing with past trauma, that was very fragile emotionally. I had a hard time keeping stable friendship relationships because I didn't have good interrelationship skills. We did find some support with families in our local homeschooling community. Once a week my children attended a day tutorial so that I could go to therapy and other times some mothers would watch my children if I had an appointment on a different day.
What I was not, God alone had to become. In my tattered state, I still pointed my children to Jesus and I myself relied wholly on Him for healing, direction, and teaching. Of course, this had to be very challenging to them because they saw how much I struggled and knew I professed to know and love God. They watched me fail in relationships, in being unable to serve at church, in not consistently having employment and in not being allowed to volunteer in groups because of my trauma triggers and instability. I am sure many times when they needed me, I was too medicated or too out of touch with reality. In many ways I was an embarrassment to them. I longed to be a close mother, to be involved with their life and they wanted to not be associated with me because I might say or do something to draw negative attention.
I finished therapy almost three years ago. In my healed state, I have tried to be available as much as I can as a mother. They are no longer little children and they need to expand their wings and build their own life relationships with friends. So I have learned to adjust my need to be a mother with their need to be independent. I am learning to be open to the small times here and there when they need or want me. At least I can offer this, something I could not have offered when they were younger. I have also learned to adjust my idea of what a home should be, what a family functions like, and what a parent-child relationship can be.
For the sake of my two teens still at home we had to make a hard "tough love" decision. It was heartbreaking but necessary to tell him he had to move out. He cried and said he had nowhere to go. He told my husband if we kicked him out he would disown us and never have a relationship with us. At first he met with us once or twice a week to get some money and go to eat, but when we stopped giving money, he stopped seeing us. Our son has chosen to reject "our faith in Christ" and to live life his own way. We accept this and still always tell him that we love him. He claims to be a Christian -- like many of the people he hangs with -- but to live in sinful ways, not read the Bible or attend a local church. He believes that we are holier-than-thou and not like normal people who also say they are Christians, like the people he has met who he considers friends.
I called my son a few hours ago to find out if he would be coming over anytime during Christmas so that I could prepare food for his time with us. He no longer communicates with us, so I simply was trying to find out what he wanted to do. He told me that he would not be coming home for any of Christmas. I told him that this was fine. It was his choice and that I loved him.
When I hung up the phone, I wondered if it hurts him that he has no home to go to or family to spend time with for Christmas. His voice indicated no concern. It is like he has chosen to pretend he has no family. I guess he is in a way being like me.
So, this will be a different Christmas for us; the first Christmas that all five of us are not together. I wondered at first if God was trying to let me feel what my parents feel like, since I decided to not have a relationship with them after so many years of trying to reconcile. Since my parents don't admit to the abuse and ask for forgiveness, it is impossible to have a genuine reconciled relationship with them. I stopped talking to them during the years of trauma therapy because I could not heal my mental wounds while still sticking myself into the fire. I also wanted to protect my children from the chaos of abusive relationships.
I hear Him say "to taste the separation of a parent and child." Anyone can imagine a bad/abusive parent being separated by a severed relationship with their child, but it is harder to understand a child wanting to be separated from a parent that tried to love and do them good all the days of their life. How much more must the pain be for God Himself who is the perfect Parent and still He is rejected by so many!
God requires only that we receive by grace Jesus' salvation and lordship to have peace, love, joy and eternal life in heaven. Christmas is all about Jesus entering this world, becoming Emanuel (which literally means God is with us) to make a way for us to have a reconciled relationship with God. And yet for so many, the cost is too much. They are unwilling to let go of their counterfeit pleasure to know genuine satisfaction. They choose a home that allows them to do as they please, over a home that provides acceptance, support and encouragement to live in light of God's pleasure. They don't consider themselves a sinner in need of a Savior to receive forgiveness and they definitely do not want a Lord of their life, surrendering to His will instead of living their own choices.
Oh, Holy Night, The Light is Brightly Shining. Jesus is that bright shining light. He shines into the darkness. As we draw near Him, our sinfulness become more apparent. No wonder so many want to stay in the shadows. Still, He is available to those who need and want Him. He goes where He is accepted and asked. He gives to those who long for a permanent place to call home, an everlasting relationship between a child and a parent.
It is a freewill choice that we all must make. We all choose whether to receive or reject Jesus. There is no middle ground. To not receive Jesus as Lord and Savior is to reject Him.
Life is not easy. There are many horrible realities of abuses and heartache. We all harbor memories of painful experiences. But to everyone and anyone who chooses to walk through the door of Jesus, they can come HOME to God for Christmas and every day thereafter.
It is true to say, "Home is where the heart is." My home is with Christ.
In reflecting on seeing this article's headline and our pastor's picture on the front page of the lifestyle section, I thought about how this was my one goal in raising my two sons and daughter. I was going to raise them differently than I experienced as a child.
I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I grew up in terror.
My Childhood Homes
I was born the middle child of nine children to a family in a city outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. Matter of fact, I grew up "across the river" as we called it from the city. Our first home was a little 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom rectangular home on the corner lot of a little neighborhood in Gretna, Louisiana. Every room in that house holds memories of horrors that took place to my mother and the children. My brain is like the family historian that recorded the majority of torturous incidents. My plan was to never forget to make sure my father paid for his crimes. This plan caused me much bitterness and fear until I learned how much it was hurting me and how to forgive. I remembered the beatings, the screaming, the stranglings, the destruction of property and dehumanization of siblings. In this little house, 6 children lived in the back bedroom that was probably a 10 by 10 square foot box. We shared one closet for all of our belongings.When I was in the fifth grade, we moved one block away to the main street entering the city from the Mississippi River bridge, Terry Parkway. Even though the city was still officially Gretna, the people who lived on this street preferred to say they lived in Terrytown. It sounded more classy than old Gretna and it was at that time a big development company came in to build new homes on Terry Parkway. Until this point, only a few "mansion-type" properties existed on this prominent street. My parents bought one of these newly produced homes that were exactly like one of the five choice model homes available by the builder. We were moving up to a four bedroom, two bath house that had a living room, study, walk-in kitchen, nook--the size of a dining room, a living room, foyer and front receiving room.
Changing homes did not make a big difference in my life, because we were still living in a torturously, abusive family. This bigger home only provided me with more rooms to memorize the horrible episodes of abuse: rope-noose hangings, a decade of incest, gladiator-style boxing, lashings with belt buckles and hangers, hours of calisthenics, guns held to the temple of the head, and so much more violence like this. We lived in literal fear every day that someone would die. It was not a home, but a prison, our own "concentration" camp.
Christmas was no different in my childhood home. It was not a joyous time but a guaranteed day like every other day that there would be abuse. The wrong gift was bought; the piece of dessert was missing; someone said something wrong or looked the wrong way. We never knew what would bring the terror about but one thing was certain: it would come and someone would be accused and punished with unthinkable abuse.
Away From Home
Now forty years later, I don't travel to see the homes in Louisiana. I have not been there for over 15 years. Both homes are sold to other families. I pray the families that live in these homes experience better times, and have happy memories. My aged parents are still living and have moved to a two bedroom condo. I have never seen their home. I don't speak to them.Today, I am a mother of my own children: two teenagers and a young adult. My oldest is twenty-one. He is my first born son. I recall being in a missionary service singing and feeling him kick in my womb. It was there and many other times that I dedicated him to God. I had become a Christian in my young twenties when I heard the Holy Spirit speak to my soul the words, "Jesus is God." Instantly, I decided to give my life to follow and obey God.
In the years that followed, I married, tried to reconcile and forgive my parents for the abuse and to build a family relationship, not really knowing what that was. In my ninth year of marriage, after I graduated from college with a teaching degree in Early Childhood Education, I had my own child. The only thing I wanted to do was to be a mother, a wife and to serve God. The most important message I wanted my children to know was Jesus was God. I wanted them to have a personal relationship with Him and to become whoever He created them to be. My husband and I raised them with this sole goal.
Healing at Home
In my thirties, I struggled with mental illness and post traumatic stress due to the horrible terror I had witnessed and experienced as a child. Each year my children grew, I experienced more trauma triggers. My mind was splitting and I struggled with suicidal desires. I thought if only they had a different mother, a healthy mother, they could grow up to be who God created them to be. I ached over the mistakes I made: my indecisions, my decisions, my words, my actions, my abilities and lack of them. I grieved that I had not been able to give my children a stable, safe, loving home--that my weaknesses and sin hurt them. I ached and cried and screamed out to God for help to become the mother he wanted me to be, the one my children needed.So when I hit a mental and emotional rock-bottom, I was almost put into a mental institution, but instead my husband begged me to be treated out-patient from our home. Therefore, I entered into what became ten years of trauma therapy and took psychotropic medication. I struggled to hang on. So many of the trauma therapies were new and at that point being used on war veterans. I was among a new group of mentally ill patients being treated with EMDR and brainspotting. My children had to deal with the fallout. There were no relatives to help: no aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents that stepped in to be the loving, supportive network of stability my children needed.
We were members of a church, but no one wanted to get involved. I shared my story with the pastors but I think it scared them. My condition was too messy; and something that the churches at that time did not know much about. I hurt to think of the loss and fear my children experienced in the chaos and void of having a mother that was not all there, that was disassociated dealing with past trauma, that was very fragile emotionally. I had a hard time keeping stable friendship relationships because I didn't have good interrelationship skills. We did find some support with families in our local homeschooling community. Once a week my children attended a day tutorial so that I could go to therapy and other times some mothers would watch my children if I had an appointment on a different day.
What I was not, God alone had to become. In my tattered state, I still pointed my children to Jesus and I myself relied wholly on Him for healing, direction, and teaching. Of course, this had to be very challenging to them because they saw how much I struggled and knew I professed to know and love God. They watched me fail in relationships, in being unable to serve at church, in not consistently having employment and in not being allowed to volunteer in groups because of my trauma triggers and instability. I am sure many times when they needed me, I was too medicated or too out of touch with reality. In many ways I was an embarrassment to them. I longed to be a close mother, to be involved with their life and they wanted to not be associated with me because I might say or do something to draw negative attention.
I finished therapy almost three years ago. In my healed state, I have tried to be available as much as I can as a mother. They are no longer little children and they need to expand their wings and build their own life relationships with friends. So I have learned to adjust my need to be a mother with their need to be independent. I am learning to be open to the small times here and there when they need or want me. At least I can offer this, something I could not have offered when they were younger. I have also learned to adjust my idea of what a home should be, what a family functions like, and what a parent-child relationship can be.
Home for Christmas
This will be the first year my oldest son will not be home for Christmas. It is his choice; He doesn't desire to spent it with us. He has broken off his relationship with us. This past year my husband and I had to finally ask him to leave our home because he would not obey simple house rules and respect our Christian beliefs. He is trying to discover who is and what he wants to do. Of course he is making many decisions that we wish he would not but he is the kind of person that has to try even though he has been told that is the way to pain. He wants to test the waters for himself, and that is a prerogative that every human is given. We all have freewill. It is what makes being a human so complicated, and at the same time so rewarding. We live in a world with evil and good. Therefore, it helps to know right from wrong and to believe that boundaries are set for our benefit, not to keep us from short-lived pleasures.For the sake of my two teens still at home we had to make a hard "tough love" decision. It was heartbreaking but necessary to tell him he had to move out. He cried and said he had nowhere to go. He told my husband if we kicked him out he would disown us and never have a relationship with us. At first he met with us once or twice a week to get some money and go to eat, but when we stopped giving money, he stopped seeing us. Our son has chosen to reject "our faith in Christ" and to live life his own way. We accept this and still always tell him that we love him. He claims to be a Christian -- like many of the people he hangs with -- but to live in sinful ways, not read the Bible or attend a local church. He believes that we are holier-than-thou and not like normal people who also say they are Christians, like the people he has met who he considers friends.
I called my son a few hours ago to find out if he would be coming over anytime during Christmas so that I could prepare food for his time with us. He no longer communicates with us, so I simply was trying to find out what he wanted to do. He told me that he would not be coming home for any of Christmas. I told him that this was fine. It was his choice and that I loved him.
When I hung up the phone, I wondered if it hurts him that he has no home to go to or family to spend time with for Christmas. His voice indicated no concern. It is like he has chosen to pretend he has no family. I guess he is in a way being like me.
So, this will be a different Christmas for us; the first Christmas that all five of us are not together. I wondered at first if God was trying to let me feel what my parents feel like, since I decided to not have a relationship with them after so many years of trying to reconcile. Since my parents don't admit to the abuse and ask for forgiveness, it is impossible to have a genuine reconciled relationship with them. I stopped talking to them during the years of trauma therapy because I could not heal my mental wounds while still sticking myself into the fire. I also wanted to protect my children from the chaos of abusive relationships.
Home with God
I pause after writing this long post and think... God, what are you showing me? What are you teaching me?I hear Him say "to taste the separation of a parent and child." Anyone can imagine a bad/abusive parent being separated by a severed relationship with their child, but it is harder to understand a child wanting to be separated from a parent that tried to love and do them good all the days of their life. How much more must the pain be for God Himself who is the perfect Parent and still He is rejected by so many!
God requires only that we receive by grace Jesus' salvation and lordship to have peace, love, joy and eternal life in heaven. Christmas is all about Jesus entering this world, becoming Emanuel (which literally means God is with us) to make a way for us to have a reconciled relationship with God. And yet for so many, the cost is too much. They are unwilling to let go of their counterfeit pleasure to know genuine satisfaction. They choose a home that allows them to do as they please, over a home that provides acceptance, support and encouragement to live in light of God's pleasure. They don't consider themselves a sinner in need of a Savior to receive forgiveness and they definitely do not want a Lord of their life, surrendering to His will instead of living their own choices.
Oh, Holy Night, The Light is Brightly Shining. Jesus is that bright shining light. He shines into the darkness. As we draw near Him, our sinfulness become more apparent. No wonder so many want to stay in the shadows. Still, He is available to those who need and want Him. He goes where He is accepted and asked. He gives to those who long for a permanent place to call home, an everlasting relationship between a child and a parent.
It is a freewill choice that we all must make. We all choose whether to receive or reject Jesus. There is no middle ground. To not receive Jesus as Lord and Savior is to reject Him.
Life is not easy. There are many horrible realities of abuses and heartache. We all harbor memories of painful experiences. But to everyone and anyone who chooses to walk through the door of Jesus, they can come HOME to God for Christmas and every day thereafter.
It is true to say, "Home is where the heart is." My home is with Christ.
Comments
I read somewhere that the closer a child is to his/her parents when an infant, toddler, and elementary school student, the more difficult it is when he/she begins to become his/her own person. It gets better. At this point, about all we can do is pray and hope we have instilled enough values that our child will steer himself or herself through the world without succumbing to the temptations present.
God is good.
Just pray for him when you think of him for God to protect him and draw him near to Him.