7:52 am Christmas morning 2009
It’s quiet. I slept late. Did the kids already see what Santa brought?
Oh. wait.
The kids, they’re gone – with him. And it’s Christmas.
That was my first ever and one and only Christmas morning alone. And I cried, a lot. One would sometimes think that being a single Mom to 6 and a day alone, a day of quiet and no work, that’s a gift all in itself. But one would be wrong when it comes to holidays and divorce.
Emotions are a funny thing for me. I’m pretty sure that my main emotion on that Christmas day was sadness. But my emotions went something like this …
Sad>Lonely>Blessed>Lonely>Mad>Entitled>Lonely>Blaming myself
It wasn’t pretty.
That line doesn’t really do it justice though.
I’m sad that it’s Christmas morning and it’s different.
I’m lonely well more like, I’m completely alone here.
But wow! I have given birth to 6 blessings, they are mine to love and raise and they will be coming home to OUR home very soon.
But …. My babies are gone right now.
Stupid divorce(s). I can’t believe our marriage ended and here I am (again). These laws, parenting “plans”, are just wrong – I’m the Mother, I deserve them, right now in my home.
And I’m alone.
Because I did this. I let this happen (again). I let him walk away, I helped him leave. Right now, this minute, would be better with him… we could make it work, right?
Even 4 years later the emotion is real. The questions, the statements, it brings this pit to my stomach that seems to not really go away. Divorce does that to a person. Clearly one of the reasons that I think God hates divorce, because it hurts His child ….deeeeep… in a place that He can heal but a place that leaves a scar. I’m so thankful that He, that God, knitted together my innermost being, because He knows where to find the pit of my stomach.
And as I ponder, there are things about my story that God knows just as deeply as my innermost being.
He knows the pain of being apart from His son.
John 3:16-17 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”
Setting aside the Oneness of the Trinity, God sent His son, apart from His presence, apart from His home in Heaven.
Essentially, God woke up Christmas morning without His child, just like me.
Months before (just like me) He had to set things into motion, He had to start letting go (just like me), He sent an angel to tell Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”
Sometimes I get caught up (especially in the moments of emotion like above) in believing that I am all alone in my pain. I can talk myself into believing that no one has felt this sadness before or known this disappoint like me. I even go so far as to say that while 50% of American families are sliced apart by divorce, none of them have my painful situation. The depth of my pain has never been felt.
And I would be wrong.
The differences in the stories are grand. God’s Son was away from Heaven for years and His one and only purpose was to take upon Him the weight of the sins of the world, my sins, and to suffer the ultimate punishment of separation from God the Father– it was all in His perfect plan to reconcile each of us to Him.
My children are away from my presence for short amounts of time. They are enjoying the love of their own father in the absence of their mother. They are not suffering or being led to a higher calling.
But I am.
I am called to be Christ-like. The very definition of referring to myself as a Christian means that I am like Him.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
And Jesus said in John 10:20 – “I and the Father are one.”
Jesus also said in John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
And the commandment in John 13:34-35 –“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Or in Matthew 22:37-39 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Sometimes we think that commandment to love is easy – sometimes it IS easy. But with divorce …. That commandment to love can be hard.
I know.
That Christmas morning I didn’t feel a lot of love for the man that had fathered my children and had taken them away for the moment – but God was still calling me to love.
Slowly, as I learn to put my children first, I am learning that the commandments of Christ, and of God the Father Who knows my suffering, are essential.
Just as God the Father wants me to be like Him, through imitation of Christ the Son, I the mother want my children to be like me, and they WILL do that by imitation.
Father God, I pray today that you will make me more like You. Father show me how to love ALL even in the midst of my pain. Thank you Father that you knit me together and that you know my innermost being, forgive me for the sin that You find still there. I praise You Creator for all that I have, indeed, it is good. Amen
Today – I dare you, divorced woman, to allow God to see your innermost being (He created it anyway). I dare you to give Him your pain with the knowledge that he “gets it”. I dare you to live according to His commands and love ALL.
Today, I dare all of you to share – statistics say that at least half of the people you come into contact with in every day life (whether in person or online) are touched by divorce. Help us show them that God has a calling even for them. A calling to love one another.
Humbled to be asked to write this by Him, thankful to walk in obedience today.
Love to all – Katy
Respect after Divorce 