Up close and personal

We so gratefully got to take a trip down to Sacramento with our kids this week to be at my Papa’s funeral.  It was so comforting to be with my family during this difficult time of grief and mourning. I was so, so thankful to be a part of the service with the rest of my cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandma, brothers, etc.  It meant a lot.  

It has been seven and a half years since I’ve lived there and with each trip back down to visit my roots and my family my heart is heavier and heavier. Especially this past week as I got the chance to be amidst my family.  I was overjoyed and yet angry.  Overjoyed because I live so far away and don’t get these times to be with them often. And angry because I got to experience up close the unfortunate dynamics and broken relationships that come from something I hate with everything in me: divorce and unforgiveness.

I do not hate my parents for divorcing. I have dealt with those things. While forgiveness has washed away the bitterness and grudges, the CONSEQUENCES of divorce do not just go away.  The consequences remain 20+ years later.  And they are not fun.  They are not easy.   I continually have to surrender my anger to the Lord about this and ask him to turn it into something productive because I want to be more than a product of divorce. I refuse to let it rule me with bitterness and anger. I refuse to let it destroy relationships in my life. It already has done enough of that. So what do we do with it? What do we do with the messes and ugliness and unfortunate situations that exist even now because of it? 

At the end of the day this is where I land: Things are not how they OUGHT to be.  But they are what they are.  And now as a wife and a mom I get to ask God to help me go from anger to righteous anger to passionate pursuit of everything Godly in my marriage and family so that we may be the ones who draw the line in the sand and say NO MORE. We will NOT allow these strongholds to be passed down any longer! It stops with us. It stops with our family.  We will guard our hearts against the fiery darts of the enemy. We will contend for our marriage and our kids so that they may experience something different.  When we don’t know how to do it we will gather people around us who DO. We will choose to be transparent, honest, forgiving, and live in a community of people who will help us do these things. No matter what.    

That is the ONLY thing I know to do with the mess that I got to see up close this past week.  So that is what we will do.  The hard things. For the sake of unity in my family.  What an opportunity I now have with my husband and kids. 

In Isaiah 61:3 Jesus declares that he will exchange beauty for ashes.  In Romans 8:28 the Bible reminds us that God works all things together for the good of those who love him. 

I rest on those verses when I am overcome with sadness and faced with difficult situations in my family. HE can work even these ugly, hard things together for HIS good. HE can turn the ashes into something beautiful.  

Circumstances such as these propel me to the promises in his Word because there has to be something more than just the mess. Thank you Jesus that there is. Thank you Jesus that we have a hope to live for in you, even in the messes, even in a broken world where there is heart ache and where things that aren’t how they ought to be. We look to you to know what to do.