So Much For The Flu Shot...

So it's been a few weeks since my last post. I tested positive for the flu even having had the flu shot. This really didn't surprise me because I am feeling pretty exhausted lately and I had diagnosed a patient with the flu the week prior so I knew that I had a sick contact. In any event, the flu is no fun. I seriously have never been that sick before.

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I have been communicating with my husband minimally and to be honest, I feel much better. I have avoided his girlfriend's blog and his myspace account and am truly all the better for it. It's so much better not knowing right?

We have been talking more over the past 24 hours because our children are having a difficult time. They are telling me that daddy yells a lot- and believe me, daddy was yelling plenty before we separated so I believe them. They felt like it was their fault, typical for children to feel this way. I validated their feelings while encouraging them to talk with their daddy about how they are feeling. Neither of them felt like they could do that. We discussed ways to make daddy's apartment feel more like a home as this was a concern for them. They decided to bring a book case and some toys.

I emailed my husband to tell him about the conversation and he thanked me for the insight. He admitted that he had been yelling a lot lately because he is tired and feels trapped. I have to stop here to admit that I am fairly tired of hearing his sad story. He says that he is trapped because if he doesn't watch the kids while I work on Saturdays than I will have to get a sitter and he can't afford anymore daycare. So he has to watch the kids when he should be sleeping and he is tired and yells. I reassured him that I understand what it feels like to feel trapped and that I didn't think this would change for either of us anytime soon.

I have to say that I was thankful to the Lord that I was able to let the conversation go without getting into it really. It isn't easy to hold back from reminding him that the days that he isn't exhausted he is choosing to spend with his girlfriend. But it just isn't worth it at this point.

I am hopeful that he will be kinder and gentler with the children.

From The Word:
The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him, but with an overwhelming flood... he will pursue his foes into darkness. Whatever they plot against the Lord he will bring to an end; trouble will not come a second time.
Nahum 1:7-9

My Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I pray for my children Lord. I ask in Jesus name that you seal their hearts and protect them from my husbands choices and behaviors. Lord, be their refuge when they feel abandoned, troubled and sad. In Jesus name, amen.

Would You Believe...

I want to start by admitting that this is going to be a hateful entry. And I am sorry to anyone who may read this and be disappointed.

It feels like I was hit by a freight train. I started getting the chills as I pulled off the highway last night. By the time that I got home I was shaking uncontrollably with fever and muscle pain. I had a head ache and my chest hurt to the point I wanted to cry. All I could do was wrap myself in a blanket and pray to the Lord that I would be in good enough shape to make it to clinical today. And I did. I really just don't have time to be sick right now.

Today is my birthday. It started the way that it does every year- with my little sister singing Happy Birthday to me horribly off key (and I return the favor every September). I love her.

I had a message from my husband, who had our children last night, on my cell phone saying that the children really missed me and that he tried to get to the house this morning before I left for clinical but it just didn't workout. He said that the kids were excited because they had something for me for my birthday. This immediately annoyed me because I neither need nor desire him to help the kids pick anything out for me. Period. I do not need him to placate his conscience on my behalf. So I brace myself to put on a happy face because I know that the kids will be very excited. He brought them to Walmart to pick out a gift for me. Silver plated, pink cubic zirconia heart shaped jewelry. I don't really wear a lot of jewelry, and I don't wear hearts- ever. But the kids were excited so of course I made a big deal about their gifts and put them on. He gave me a birthday card where he wrote "if you're old than I must be really old."

But you know how I really felt? I felt like he had a lot of nerve. Truly. He brings our kids to pick out birthday gifts for me (at Walmart)... Why... Because he has a girlfriend who will remember his birthday and celebrate holidays with him but poor Nicole has no one. I might be feeling feisty tonight but you know what? I'm not ready for a boyfriend seeing as I only have 2 months distance from a really dysfunctional and unhealthy, 10 year marriage not to mention that I'm not even divorced yet. I don't need him to take our kids to Walmart to buy me cheap jewelry; I need him to pay all of the babysitters and daycare providers on time. And if he was trying to be kind than maybe he would have thought to bring the kids to the yarn store in town to pick out some yarn.

This man has lost his mind. As if I couldn't have a handful of boyfriends if that's what I wanted. Please. As if I can't help the children to celebrate my birthday... As if... I sure hope it makes him feel better while he is shacked up in a cheap motel room in Maine with his new girlfriend that I will have cheap pink Walmart jewelry to turn my ears and neck greenish.

Please don't misunderstand me. I love my children and I will keep this jewelry because they picked it out and they were so excited about it. And it will be a good reminder to me of what a stupid girl I was.

I guess that I would be hard pressed to find scripture to back up this small hissy fit that I just pitched so I won't insult the Lord by trying.

My Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, please forgive me for my hateful hissy fit. I pray for health tonight Lord. I pray that you would help me to recover quickly from this cold. Lord, you say in your word that you will not give us more than we can handle and I am believing you for that word. Lord, I pray for mental health for my husband even as he transitions into being my ex-husband. In Jesus name, amen.

Wow, John Singleton

We had a guest pastor who is a great friend to our church. He is a pastor from England and he preached such a powerful message on Freedom... More about his message another time.

I didn't think that I was going to make it to church! A dear friend called crying because of her troubled relationship with her husband. Their issues are not dissimilar to my issues with my husband. Though I honestly would have expected more from my husband than from her husband. I heard myself saying to her that we are stupid girls. I pointed out that these men never lied to us and we knew what we were getting into from the very beginning. I didn't realize that my husband would suffer from depression and likely have mania as well but I did know that he was very immature, that he was never going to be strong enough to be the head of our household and that ultimately, I would have to hold our family together and continue to convince him that everything would be okay. But the truth is that my friend and I were willing to overlook some very disturbing and obvious concerns about our husbands because we both were desperately trying to establish a family. We had very different reasons. I had a little boy who I felt needed a family, a mom and a dad. My friend had helped her mother die of cancer as a 19 year old girl and she just wasn't able to consider loosing one more person. It also didn't hurt that we married the "big men" on campus- oh that definitely helped their cause.

I was really torn about how to advise her so I found myself using active listening skills. She told me that her husband was playing devils advocate when she talked about how my husband was handling our divorce and most importantly, his responsibility to our children. I thought to myself that her husband was playing his own advocate because that would likely be how he would handle a divorce. I told my friend that divorce is awful and painful and devastating. I told her that whatever minimal influence that she has over her husband she will likely loose if she divorces him. I told her that I believe that women grieve and men replace (this is not an original idea but I can not recall the author who wrote about this at the moment). I told her that I don't think that men replace us because they didn't love us but rather because they are experiencing all of the hurt and confusion and pain and anger that we are and have few personal resources or life skills to process these powerful and raw emotions. So they find new girlfriends...

Just as I hung up the phone to head out the door the phone rang and it was a colleague who needed to follow up on an admission that I did over the weekend...

I rushed out the door without my bible which feels a lot like the days I get half way to work and realize that I forgot to put on any make up!

As I walked through the door and got my kiddos settled in, a lovely woman came up to me and told me that she had a word for me. She said that she really felt that the Lord wanted me to know that His banner over me is love. She felt lead to verbalize the Lord's deep and abiding love for me. I really enjoy this woman; she has such a pure heart. I hugged her and thanked her.

John stood up and told us that as funny as it sounds for a Brit to get up and preach about freedom to Yanks that was exactly what he was planning to do! He made several points that spoke to me, touched me, convicted me, left me with questions... I just want to praise the Lord for this man, John Singleton. I love when he says things like, "I'm no friend to the Pharisees." He doesn't appear to feel particularly fond of legalists either. John made many remarkable points. One of his points really convicted me. He stressed that one of the ways that we exercise our freedom in Christ and in his kingdom is by forgiving others and he stressed that forgiveness is something that we do for ourselves not the person that we are forgiving. I believe this. His main point was that the freedom that we gained through the new covenant in Christ makes us feel uncomfortable. He said that we often try to slip back into the comfort of the old covenant because there were laws and rules and we didn't have the personal choice. This made a lot of sense to me. He also made the point that in the new covenant with Christ the focus is primarily internal. He made several more points which left me feeling profoundly condemned for my attitude towards my husbands girlfriend.

The truth is that she is born again. She is a sister in Christ and I feel like she is trashy and I disagree with her lifestyle choice and I do not want her to be around my children. I feel like a better person than her because I would never make the decisions that she makes. And I wonder if this makes me a legalist... I sat there asking the Lord to forgive me for how I feel about her and help me to feel differently. I recognize that feeling hateful things towards her only hurts me in the end. Christ called us to love our neighbor as ourselves but how can we accomplish this? Through the power of the Holy Spirit- I am convinced of this.

As I left the service to pick my children up from Sunday school, a man from my life group (bible study) stopped me to be sure that I understood that when his wife offered their support and assistance to me that they were not just offering me lip service. I thanked him. He asked me if I was getting enough sleep and I smiled and found myself saying no, not really. He said, you can call me at 2 am when something is broken and it needs to be fixed. I found myself starting to well up with tears. He and his wife are very kind and sincere. His kindness really was more than I could handle emotionally. I am still trying to comprehend why another woman's husband will offer to be woken up in the middle of the night to assist when the man who I had children with and lives down the road feels no obligation to me and only a minimal obligation to our children. That's too much for me to process right now but I will write about that more in the future. I will say that if I ever really do call this man than he can be certain that I am calling him to an emergency!

This seems like a good place to return to the woman who greeted me with a word from the Lord that His banner over me is love. Isn't the Lord remarkable. Before he works on my heart and soul to convict me, to discipline me and help me to grow- he reminds me that he has abiding love for me. What an amazing example of fatherly love. And this is one of the reason why I'm a Jesus Freak.

From the Word:

The Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will.

Romans 8: 26-27

My Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I ask that you bless your humble servant- John Singleton. Bless him father for preaching your word to ears that needed to hear. Thank you for reminding me that I have personal freedom and with that freedom comes great responsibility. Thank you for loving me enough to do the work of shaping my character. Thank you for being faithful and just to complete the good work that you began in me. Help me to always be quick to hear and fast to repent. I choose freedom Lord as I stand in awe of your personal choice of freedom when you chose to die on the cross for the forgiveness of my sin. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

A Pivotal Intersection

My children are with their fathers and I can slow down and focus on myself. I slept in a bit, I didn't drive to the bus stop with a towel on my head, I didn't check to make sure every one really brushed their teeth and actually had clean socks on, I didn't rush to get out the door, I didn't start to worry at the end of the day that I may be running late, I stopped to get Chinese food, I didn't go grocery shopping this week. I found myself smiling because I only have to think about myself. But truth be known, I start to miss the bickering, the yelling, the crying, the hustle and bustle of having kids, the frustration of having somebody always yelling Mom and never taking a breath to wait for an answer, the very moment that they go away. I thinks that's a Mom thing right?

Last Tuesday I stood at a pivotal intersection in my journey through divorce. I mentioned that I spent the day crying and aching. There were a lot of raw emotions. I realize as I look back, with some distance between myself and that day, that I was reconciling myself to the painful reality that my husband is to my younger children what my ex-husband is to my oldest son.

I spent that Tuesday letting go of what I had hoped for my little children. I had hoped that we would divorce well. I had hoped that my husband would remain available to them to be their daddy. I had hoped that we would continue to parent our children together. I had hoped that our children would come first because they are children. I had hoped that my husband would continue to coach their teams. I had hoped that he would share custody with me for our children's sake.

I understood on Tuesday that wasn't the situation. The situation is that my husband is not actively involved in our children's lives while he is living less than a mile down the road and working only 4 days a week. My husband is committed to finding comfort for his pain in another woman and her family. My husband will likely relocate by the end of the summer independent of whether he gets the job he was hoping for. My husband has embraced the notion, believed the falsehood that he will be able to start over again and be the man that he is trying so desperately to reinvent himself as. My husband is hoping that if he believes hard enough that chasing his happiness will ultimately be what is best for our children than it will be so. My husband believes that the peace that he is experiencing is a spiritual experience and I would have to agree with him but I would add that every thing that is spiritual is not of the Lord.

So how do you know? How do you know if the peace that you are feeling is from the Lord or if it is a false peace that comes from principalities? Kent said on Sunday that you hold it up to the bible, which is our plumb line. I agree with him. I would add that you seek the advice of godly people which is different than religious people. You need to proceed with caution being sure that you are providing these people a realistic view of your circumstances and you also need to be faithful not to advice shop until you eventually find someone who will tell you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear. Lastly, I would say that you need to pray and wait on the Lord.

Here's the thing, I know how to parent children when their father is undependable and makes poor choices. My oldest son's father has helped me to perfect parenting a child without bashing or belittling his father even though I detest every thing about him. I have become very skilled at saying, I'm sorry that you miss your daddy, I'm sorry that your daddy did that. I am skilled at affirming his feelings while being mindful not to bash his father to him.

I just never thought that I would have to use all of the skills that I have learned over the past 16 years with my younger children. I learned many years ago that children are very wise and when left to figure situations out they do. By the time my oldest son was 3 he understood more about the reality of his father than anything that I could have told him. Our children live that reality- they know it well. And this is why I can say to my husband without a bit of doubt or hesitation that walking away to chase his happiness will never be what is best for our children. Our children will never feel that having him leave was worth the price of loosing him. It just won't balance out that way.

While I was wrestling with the decision to divorce, my oldest son said to me that he was afraid that my younger son would be just like my husband. My son was noticing their common personality traits. He said that if my younger son ever acts like my husband than he will not sit back and watch but rather confront him. (Honestly, I think that his words were more or less that he would kick his butt but nonetheless...) I acknowledged that Jack and his dad have similar personalities much like he and his father have similar personalities. I noted that even though he had some very similar traits as his father, he wasn't his father. I wondered if he understood why. He smiled and said because of you. I said that although my husband and my ex-husband are different men and were raised in very different families neither of them possess the ability to talk about their feelings, acknowledge their feelings or be self-aware. I pointed out to my son that both he and his brother have those skills and those skills will be what make them different from their fathers. And I acknowledged that yes, in our family, we do not support inappropriate behavior, we confront it, we own it, we are accountable for it and most importantly, we take responsibility for it .

From the Word:

Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.

1 Corinthians 7:24

A prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precautions; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

Proverbs 22:3 NLT

My Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, my husband is listening to the voice that is whispering in his ear. Father, I ask you speak loudly and clearly to his heart. Lord God, leave no room for misinterpretations, cause him to fall to his knees like Moses did at the burning bush and know that what he is hearing is the will of God. Father, like wise, I pray for myself, help me to foresee the dangers that are ahead and take precautions. Holy Spirit, give me your sight so that I do not walk blindly and suffer the consequences. In Jesus name, amen.

Me And My Boy

There was a cartoon that my oldest son watched when he was in preschool and I believe that it was called Busy Town. In any event, there were brothers and one of the boys had a cheerful personality and one of the boys was very disagreeable. My middle son is certainly a combination of these brothers but I have had to chuckle over the past 8 years of his life because there are times that he is absolutely disagreeable.

My middle son was a very difficult baby. I had him 7 years after my oldest son who had been a very easy baby (as if he had much of a choice right, considering I was 18!). My middle son cried for the first 7 months of his life. The pediatrician said that he had colic but he had more than just colic. If he was awake than he was screaming. He screamed so much that it literally became back ground noise to our family. I don't recall ever feeling angry with him; there was never a time when I felt like I needed to just shut him up.

I do recall that I had a very difficult time bonding with him. I was so close to my oldest son and here was this baby who I had so anticipated yet all he did was scream. Nursing him was a nightmare. He would scream and scream and I would have to firmly pat his back and bottom during every feeding. There were many nights that I laid in bed and cried to my husband that I just didn't feel a bond to this child. He was the type of kid that would have gone home with anyone.

When he learned to roll it was like a switch went off in him head and the screaming stopped. Suddenly, after 7 months of screaming- there was silence. That is until he learned how to say "no".

He has always been a sensitive, gentle and caring boy. I can remember our first parent teacher conference when he was in nursery school. The teacher went on and on about how calm he was and how good he was. I remember my husband and I got out to the parking lot and hesitated to ask each other if she knew that we were Jack's parents... He is a wonderful friend to everyone. I have never met a child who wasn't Jack's best friend. And when children are mean- my son has the ability to rationalize why they may be behaving that way. He will often say to me that so and so was not being nice today but he will add, you know mom- I don't think he has a very good life at home. In first grade, his teacher told us that there is a time of day where kids have to pair up and he picks names out of a jar. He said that no matter which child it was, when they found out that they were paired with our son they would yell, "yes!". He is just that type of kid.

I think that the reason that it was such a surprise to hear how well adjusted our son was at school was because there were definitely some behaviors that we had noticed at home that were concerning. Homework was a battle to end all battles. When I ask him to clean his room he will refuse and when given the option of cleaning or loosing all of his toys he will often choose to loose his belongings. I had to drag him out of bed in the morning and force him to go to school for most of first and second grade. But once we pulled in- he was fine. Thankfully, this is a rare instance in third grade.

He will dig his heels in and battle every step of the way. By the end of first grade I realized that he suffered from anxiety and considering my husband has anxiety and I am a worrier... that didn't surprise me. I found myself saying to my 5 year old daughter on more than one occasion when she was mimicking my son's disagreeable behavior, "come on, I expect more from you.". The impact of this statement hit me hard. The reality is that I do expect more of my 5 year old than I do of my 8 year old at times.

The interesting thing about my son is that he can work himself up to yelling and screaming. I may have to assist him in hand over hand activities some times but in the end, he always sincerely apologizes.

My son's personality is very similar to my husband's and I have noticed for many years that my extreme frustration with him is often transferred frustration with my husband. Of my 3 children, I was the most concerned about telling my middle son that we were divorcing. And do you know- he is the child who has honestly handled the divorce the best. He talks when he needs to talk and he has otherwise been ok. His disagreeable behaviors have significantly decreased to the point that I feel like some of his most concerning behavior was in response to the tension in our home. He has amazed me really.

My son and I are developing a bond that we haven't had before. I am finding myself able to relate to him for the first time in 8 years. I feel like I am getting to know who he really is. And I feel so blessed.

Today I was getting my youngest children ready to go spend 4 days with my husband and his parents. At one point, my son sat down and said that he didn't really want to go for 4 days. I kneeled down in front of where he was sitting so that we were at eye level. I told him that I love him very much. I told him that I always miss him when he is gone but that I love that he will get to spend time with his dad and his grandparents. I told him that no matter what, I would always be here and would never go anywhere. I made a point to add that I wasn't trying to say that his dad wouldn't always be here but rather to reassure him that I always would. He doesn't have to worry about me going anywhere. He said that he understood and he certainly seemed to really understand my point.

This was a very special moment with my very special son.

From the Word:

The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.

Psalm 103:13-14


My Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, I love these versus! Thank you for understanding how weak we are and knowing that we are only dust. Thank you Father for my middle son. Thank you for the calmness that I see in him. Lord, I know that this calmness is your gift to him just as he is your gift to me. Help me to be quick to reassure him that we are going to be okay and help him to believe my words. Bring dependable men into his life Lord who reflect your love. I ask that you seal his heart from his familial anxiety and give him peace in the knowledge that you have a father heart. In Jesus name, amen.

Getting Recentered

This week has not been my best week ever!

I worked for Hospice on Monday and reached a saturation point with death and dying. I did two admissions, both urgent and actively dying and I did 5 visits most of which were actively dying- one patient died after my visit but before I left the facility...

I spent Tuesday crying and grieving my failed marriage, my husband walking away from our family, feeling dispensable and easily replaceable. And lonely too, I suppose.

I was out of the house for 14 hours on Wednesday.

Thursday I was still very fragile, my oldest son asked to stay after at school to work on a sophomore class project for winter carnival. He lost his cell phone so I had no way to be in touch with him. I was expecting him on the late bus around 5:15pm. By 8:00pm I was feeling like one of those single mother's who doesn't even know where her child is... He called to check in at 8:30pm, he wasn't packed for his flight out to see his Dad the next day, none of his chores were done and he lets me know that he will be home around 12:00am because that is as late as they can stay. It starts to come back to me from the previous year... I am too exhausted to protest and on some level am comforted that he is involved and engaged at school, supervised and participating but this doesn't stop me from laying into him about his lack of preparedness and communication. I hang up the phone both annoyed with him and myself. Why couldn't I just be supportive? Why did I need to lay into him? Why? I realize that I have no idea if my husband is planning to help me tomorrow with transportation to the airport in Boston or watching our younger children so I send him an email.

Friday morning I wake up to an email from my husband that entails a long list of excuses. I realize that I will just bring the little kids with me. We get to the airport and through the gate with 2.5 hours to spare. We decide to sit down and have dinner at a restaurant. My son has a 7:10 flight out. At 6:38 I look at my watch because the kids ask about dessert. I think 7:10, sure we have some time. We head over to the gate around 6:50 and you may have guessed, we had missed the flight. I was shocked because you see, we are not novices to this whole flying out to see dad thing. We do this all the time. I am wracking my mind trying to understand how I let this happen. How did I mistake departure time for boarding time? Because I am absolutely exhausted, that's how. I am standing there in disbelief trying to decide what to do and dreading the thought of having to call my son's father and let him know that we missed the flight. Of course, it was the last flight out. The attendant was very kind and rebooked my son on the first flight out the next morning- 7:00am. I'm standing there trying to decide if I should drive back home and get up and leave the house by 4am- which would be pushing it. Should I rent a hotel room near Boston? That won't be affordable... Thank God for mother's right? I call mine to problem solve as I have mentioned that I am exhausted... In the end, I was able to rent a room that the airline reserved at a reduced rate, we got settled in around 8:45pm. And by the way, my son's father was kind regarding the whole situation which I wasn't really prepared for but appreciated more than I can say.

Saturday morning we were up at 4:45am and back at the airport by 5:45am. I got my son through the gate and was heading back home by 6:15am, got home around 7:45am got ready for work, got the kids ready to spend the day with my parents, dropped my kids off at my parents and arrived at work by 9:30am only to discover that I had 5 visits and an admission at 3 different facilities with a good bit of distance between. I walked through the door of my house about 15 minutes before my parents arrived to drop the my little kids off.

Mean while, my husband and I have been going back and forth via email regarding the fact that our children miss him, February vacation is his break with the kids this year, he made no plans with his employer to take any time off of work and he is not planning to miss his weekly Wednesday trip to visit his girlfriend in Maine. My husband finally says that he is planning to take the kids to his parents house for the week. And this is fine with me. Our kids will get to spend some time with their dad and he will be around other people so hopefully he will actually spend time with the kids and not on-line or sleeping. And I will get a 4 day break to hopefully, focus on some school work as I have done the bare minimum.

My husband and I are also reliving some very old fights via email. These fights include the fact that he feels that he has made so many changes since he moved out and I have made none, that he is broke and doesn't have enough money and this is my fault because he needs to be completely available to me to assist with the kids even though he is only really spending Tuesdays with the kids. I am so tired of these fights and here's the bottom line:

• My husband feels like he has had to make so many changes and I have chosen not to make any.
• My husband is angry because I earn about 3 times what he earns and feels that it is not his problem if I choose to make no changes and cannot live off of $75,000 a year.
• He feels that by walking away from the kids he is doing what is best and choosing to not fight about custody. He keeps saying that "this is how you wanted it Nicole so now you have to deal with it."
• He does not want to discuss anything because he does not want to dwell in the past. He is embracing this new opportunity to rediscover himself.
• He feels that I am being manipulative and playing games. He feels that he has been at my beck and call and he is all done letting me walk all over him.
• He can't have the kids Thursday through Monday because he is working and he has to work to support them. He is not going to sit around and wait to see if I need help with the kids on the days that I am at work.

My perspective is as follows:

• The reason that my husband has had to make so many changes is because he quit his job in August with no job lined up and has since taken a $25,000 pay cut. As you may be able to imagine your lifestyle changes rapidly when you go from earning $50,000 to about $25,000. Although this was not the cause of our divorce- it was the catalyst. My husband's decision changed our families lifestyle and honestly, after I watched him become increasingly depressed, refuse to put any serious effort into finding a job and choose to spend the summer and fall at the golf course so that he could play with his friends- I was done. I was not going to support him while he did nothing.
• My husband is angry that I earn about 3 times what he earns including child support but he has the capacity to earn about as much as I do. I worked full time to support him while he was in grad school and he has a MBA which he has chosen not to use.
• I am trying to keep our children in their home. I feel like they are experiencing enough changes right now that they don't need to relocate.
• I have offered to give my husband anything that he wants from our home and he wants nothing.
• My husband loves our children but has always voiced feeling overwhelmed by parenthood and tied down with the responsibility. He got to the point that he yelled more than he talked to them. He is enjoying not being tied down to parenting and isn't stopping to think about how his decisions are effecting our children.
• My husband is angry that I refuse to take care of him any more. My husband is lazy and is satisfied with the idea of a woman taking care of him- financially, emotionally, physically. When I stopped taking care of him he found a woman who would.
• My husband enjoys playing the role of the nice guy, and he is a nice guy, but he is having a very difficult time dealing with the fall out of his own decisions and the reality that he isn't being a very nice guy.
• My husband has always used the children as a crutch for not being successful. He could never find a job that he enjoyed or that paid well because he had to take care of our children. My job wasn't flexible. Even when he is minimally involved with our children he continues to use them as a crutch.

So, after this very long and ridiculous week, I sat in church and was convicted about how I am choosing to respond to my husband. Kent preached today out of Colossians. He made the point that no one has the ability to take away my freedom to choose how I will react. I was powerfully convicted. I have spent about 48 hours going tit for tat with my husband instead of just enjoying our children before they go away for their break. I have spent a lot of energy reading my husband's girlfriend's blog trying to get a sense of who she is, trying to figure this whole thing out and make some sense of it. I have prayed that the Lord would help me to avoid this blog and access to information that I do not need to know but I have been weak.

After absorbing the impact of what Kent had to say, I walked away from church feeling recentered, restored and renewed. I am committed to avoiding the blog. I don't really want to know. I suddenly, don't really care. Things are not magically resolved. I am still hurt and angry and disappointed. But in the midst of this chaos I need to choose how I will respond and react.

I am committed to focusing on my children and what is best for them. I am letting go of any sense of family that I was holding onto with my husband. I am completely letting go and trusting that the Lord will provide and take care of my needs. But how will I accomplish this lofty and somewhat unrealistic covenant?

From the Word:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Ephesians 6:10

I rejoice greatly in the Lord...

Philippians 4:10

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

My Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I have failed to react well. I ask that you restore unto me your love and patience. Father, I pray that you will seal my tongue that I do not use it to hurt people around me. Holy Spirit, remind me that I have a responsibility to control myself and my response to wrong doing. God, I acknowledge that I cannot accomplish this without your strength and power. Remind me that I will be judged with the same rule that I judge others. Father, you are not a respecter of persons and you do not weight sin. My sin is just as ugly as any other person's sin. Forgive me Lord for my unkind spirit. In Jesus name, amen.

My Beautiful Daughter

I have been a mom for 16 years and that is almost as many years as I was when I had my first baby. I feel pretty confident parenting boys. My oldest son will be 16 this year and my youngest son will be 9. They are very different boys and I have had to adjust my parenting style to match their differences but I do parent my boys similarly.

My beautiful daughter recently turned 5. She loves her daddy very much and has spent a good deal of time with him because we worked separate shifts. There were good things about the time that she was able to spend with her daddy and there were some things that weren't very good.

I am realizing how much her personality is like mine and she is at a developmental stage where she identifies with her same sex parent. I was concerned that she recreated the dynamics that she observed between my husband and myself with my middle son- whose personality is like his fathers.

My daughter is 5. She is highly functional. She is organized and extremely helpful. She is an over-achiever for sure and she comes by that honestly.

I was having a difficult morning. I am utterly exhausted. I have been working 5 days a weeks and out of the house for 14 hours one day a week for clinical. Sunday has become my only day off and I get up early to get us all ready for church. Last week I called in to work on Thursday because we got 26 inches of snow, my driveway wasn't plowed, my boys had a 2 hour delay and my daughter's daycare was closed. This week my daughter is being treated for pneumonia- she's a respiratory kiddo and every thing settles into her lungs. She is exhausted. She spent Tuesday with her daddy, spent the night at his house, was dropped off at school on Wednesday morning and watched by a babysitter until 8:45pm when I got home from clinical. She essentially hadn't seen me in two days and she was exhausted.

I was planning to work a full day today because I need to leave work early tomorrow to bring my oldest son to the airport so that he can spend February vacation with his father. I was hoping to avoid using earned time this week because I had to use earned time last week. I was planning for my younger son to ride the bus home from school and stay with my older son until I got home from work. My older son said that he wanted to stay after school for winter carnival. I called a family friend to see if my younger son could go to her house after school. Her son was home sick but she was willing to take my son. I thanked her and got off of the phone. We were running late and I was trying to move everyone forward. I was getting very frustrated because our house was wrecked- even though I cleaned it on Tuesday- lately, I have to drag my oldest son out of bed in the morning and force him to go to bed at night. He and I were bickering. I was pitching a small fit that I would appreciate it if they could help out more around the house, if they could particularly be more responsible for themselves. I look down and my daughter is crying. I asked her what was wrong. She crumpled and I realized that I was working too hard to make today happen. My 5 year-old daughter is feeling badly because she isn't doing more to be helpful. I knelled down, said a prayer, took a deep breath and told her that she is a wonderful helper, she is only 5, she does more to help out than either of her brothers. I realized that she was exhausted and just missed her mom. I brought the boys to the bus stop, apologized for my pitched fit which didn't phase them in the slightest. I tell my younger son to ride the bus home, I call my friend to cancel my request when I get home.

I had to ask myself if it was going to really matter if I used 4 hours of earned time last week and 4 hours of earned time this week? What really matters is that I remain absolutely available to my children. I am almost able to do everything that needs to be done but I am struggling to be kind and sensitive all the time.

I realized how many opportunities I have for improving my parenting style with my daughter.

From the Word:

Pray this way for... all others who are in authority, so that we can live in peace and quietness, in godliness and dignity.
1 Timothy 2:2 NLT

My Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for all of the people who are praying for me father. I do not know how I would survive this divorce without the prayer of your saints. Teach me Lord, and guide me to be a better mother to all of my children. Help me to more readily recognize the difference between parenting girls and boys and teach me to approach my daughter in a manor that will help her to feel loved and supported. Help my boys to feel loved and supported by me as well. In Jesus name, amen.