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The Climb

The Climb

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I was frustrated, annoyed, broken, and feeling helpless… so, I took off on hike to clear my head. I told myself, “I’ll get out deep in nature away from everything,” but that proved to be much harder than I anticipated. First, I had to pick the trail. From our cabin, there were two directions I could go in (1) take the local, wide trail used by bikers on property, or (2) travel a section of the Appalachian Trail that is narrow, rocky, and pretty much goes straight up a mountain. Since  I’m a total Type-A “Finisher,” taking the Appalachian Trail seemed like a bad call, seeing as how I could not finish the trail and and would always want to keep going. So, I opted for the easier trail, but I heard so many voices in that direction and was reminded that I wanted to get away from noise. Sigh. Guess, I’ll have to go the hard way. So, I set off on a section of the Appalachian Trail wondering how far I would end up going.

“I’ll just go a mile in and find a place to sit down and write,” I told myself. Just calm down and enjoy nature. But, I couldn’t. The frustrations continued as I climbed, while I could hear the birds and the rush of the white water flowing down the Nantahala River, I could also still hear the cars driving along the highway; which appeared to run parallel to the trail. “Am I really going to have to listen to trucks driving by the entire way?!? Can’t I just get away!” I was tired, still frustrated, and growing ever more impatient with my path. It’s so narrow and one side drops straight down. Large rocks and tree roots are scattered about the pathway, so I have to pay attention to where I walk. I keep pressing on. No big deal. I’ll just keep going until it clears out and there is a big rock to sit on to relax. I kept climbing. Finally, I hit a curve in the path that revealed a big rock cropping, and thought, “this is perfect” while setting my bag down and taking a seat to rest and drink some water. I could see and hear the rush of the water… what a beautiful place. Then, I heard a large truck going by. Great. Looking out past the water, oh yeah there it is, the highway still following me. “Leave me alone! I just want to get away from the noise and pressure of civilization!” So I grabbed my stuff and kept going. Haven’t really hit a mile yet anyway, I can keep going and still make my way back. Surely, I can hit a quiet space before getting in too deep. So, I kept climbing. For a while the path seems to just continue to wind around the mountain, with little opportunity for openings… what if there aren’t any more rocks? What if I keep going and going and never find a better place? Maybe I should go back? Maybe I should have taken the other trail after all. Or just stayed back in the cabin and sat outside on the porch? God, what am I doing?

That’s about the time I started to notice the analogy that God was using my trip to teach me a lesson about life. He says “Narrow is the path and few find it”… this path is surely narrow, and I haven’t see a soul since I started out on it. Oh my gosh, what if I get bit by and snake and die out here because I set out on the trail alone?! What if I take a turn somewhere and can’t remember how to get back? God seemed to say to me “Relax, just trust me. Keep going.” Ugh. So, I climbed on. But my mind continued to wander. I finally found another rock. This time it protruded from the path. Just big enough for me to sit on, and be out of the way if someone happens to come by, which didn’t seem likely at this point. All those passing through probably left much earlier in the day and where way ahead of me. I looked down at my FitBit, and realized I’ve been about my mile now… also the climb was even steeper than I thought, since it calculated I had climbed the equivalent of 42 flights of stairs! Gee Whiz. “This is good,” I told myself. I can make this work, I mean, it’s kind of small and all… but I better stay here.

Then I heard the highway. Come on man! “Just rest. And don’t worry about what lies ahead,” He prompted. I used the Relax feature on my FitBit, to control and slow my breathing. For the first time, someone walked by… going in the opposite direction. I thought about stopping him and asking him about everything he’d seen, how far until it opens up, is there an nice area that I can go to sit and write? But I was reminded of another way my trip was like life… we can’t do that. Each of us has our own purpose and unique perspective and we can’t base our future on other’s past experiences. He looked like a serious Appalachian Trail hiker, probably gone many miles… he wasn’t looking for quiet alcoves God-made for writers. Had I asked, it probably would have just discouraged me further–there probably were several that he never saw, because that’s not what he was looking for, not his goal. This is my journey, and I’ve got my own guide. I just don’t trust Him all that much because He wont let me see the freakin’ map! Why can’t I just see the whole plan so I can KNOW.

Time to press on. “But how much further?” And all those questions flood back into my mind, and “What ifs”… But, I keep going. I start to build myself up with encouragement, hey, it looks like we’re finally turning away from the highway. I can hear more birds, feel more sunshine. This is great. I thought about life and complacency. The way we get somewhere and decided to stay with what we know instead of traveling further because we’d rather settle for what we know than to travel ahead into the unknown. Those first two places I stopped where nice, but not what God had in store for me. I passed another rock and then another and thought each time, “Well, I could stop here, but what if there is something better?” and kept on going. Now my confidence is growing, I’m trusting, I’m knowing. Something great is waiting for me, I just have to keep going. Then nothing. Passing more logs than rocks now. Oh great, I slip back into the sea of doubt, “I should have stopped back there.” I’ve made a mistake. Where are you taking me? I’m tired and thirsty. I only planned to travel a little ways. I only took a single bottle of water, which is more than half gone now… FitBit stair count has risen to almost 60. Dang, that’s a lot of stairs. I was too confident, now I’ve missed something… I can’t keep going, this trail goes on for a very long time. “Just trust me. You have everything you need for what you are going to do.”

Then I see it.

A perfect little spot, away from everything. And a rock formation that looks like a bench. Surrounded by trees and nature. Far enough away from the road, that I no longer hear a constant flow of cars, but only hear an occasional plane or train (and I love trains, so that’s cool with me). Can you imagine if I had stopped earlier? I never would have made it here. I could have made due with something else, but this, this is ideal. This is what I needed. This is what I really wanted. OK, it would have been even better if I was looking out at a beautiful waterfall, but I don’t even know if that is a possibility along this trail (at least as much as I can travel right now)… but maybe it’s just not the right time…

After I sat down to write, I started having hikers passing by one after another. And I realized a few other things.. (1) Most people are traveling alone (2) they have a lot more provisions than me (3) everyone has a different goal.

Our walk with God is very similar to hiking the Appalachian Trail. Those sounds of civilization are like the worldly influences we face in life. Once we are enraptured with God’s love, we think we’ve outrun the world, but it keeps following us, and occasionally catching up. We have to just keep pressing on. Our lives come with peaks and valleys. The hardest climb is to the peaks, but it comes with the greatest reward. So keep on climbing, and don’t be afraid to trust your guide.

Man of Sacrifice

Man of Sacrifice

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The other day my husband turned to me and asked, “How is it that every day you get more and more beautiful?” I smiled and replied, “Because I love you so much.”

Awwww. So sweet right? My husband is the best. And I am proud of my comparison to Sarah. That’s me so devoted to my husband and God, that I am blessed with great beauty… a princess.

The next morning I awoke, shaking away a strange dream. My husband and I were on a train, and I was sitting beside him, but pretending to sleep while he chatted with another passenger (my husband is the kind of man who has never known a stranger and seems to have a life goal to talk to every person on earth.) At some point the passenger points to me and makes a comment about my beauty and my husband tells him that I’m his sister.

Weird. I think God is trying to tell me something…  I reflect on the book I’m currently reading “This Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage” by Greg and Erin Smalley, and how at the last group meeting when we were discussing our husbands’ spiritual leadership one of the leaders asked everyone to describe their husband’s character with one word. I chose the word “sacrifice.” It was the first thing that came to mind, as my husband will constantly sacrifice himself, his dreams, his desires, for me, for his children. But after I said it aloud, I internally kicked myself because there were like a hundred “better” words I could have chosen. Or were there?

I know many of you are probably smarter than me and get things right away, but I can be kind of stubborn, so sometimes I have to be told things a hundred times before I listen…

My husband and I are in a spiritual struggle right now, fighting for our family and our children. I tend to get pretty heated over the entire thing, because of my past. Great fear enters my mind for my husband’s children because I constantly picture them going through the struggles that I had while I was living with the consequences of my parents divorce. The thoughts, the actions, the words, the tears–all of it floods my memory. And I ache for their broken hearts. I know I’m not their biological mother, but I want so bad to save them from pain, to take on their pain so they don’t have to feel it. I love them with a love I never thought possible, even though they don’t even know me! And I want to save them from going through the same destructive years I lived in depression, fear, bitterness, and hatred. I want them to know nothing but love and happiness.

We got some bad news concerning the struggle and I was devastated. I tried to hide my tears from my husband. I tried to logically find a way to change our circumstances. But then I just broke down and cried out to God, demanding to know why everything keeps going wrong. Where are your promises?! Where is our victory?!

God replied by pointing out several things to me:

1.) Do YOUR Job.

It seems like I’m forever having this conversation with God:

“Stop trying to do MY job. You’re terrible at it.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Your Job.”

“Which is what?”

“Wait.”

Sigh. “But I want to DO something!”

“Well, wait for me to finish doing my job and then I’ll tell you what needs to be done next.”

“OK.”

And then I start trying to meddle again because I don’t feel like anything is being done, and it starts all over again.

2.) Remember Your Story

I am often prompted with the question “How did your story end? You’ll have to hear my entire Salvation story another time, but the short version is that I’m alive today because someone interceded for me.  Anytime I question the power of prayer, God seems to bring that up… me being living proof and all.

3.) You’re not as spiritual as you think you are.

I often get a little high horsey, when it comes to the subject. I got saved when I was 8, and had an undeniable salvation story when I was 15. I’ve spent most of my life studying scripture, and have lived a relatively “spotless” life. Sometimes, it seems to intimidate my husband. He heralds me as the “prayer warrior” and lets me do all the praying, talking, leading Bible Study groups, and giving advice. So, I can tend to get so caught up in myself, I forget that my husband is the leader. I mean, looking at my resume, aren’t I the more “qualified” candidate? Um. No. Actually not. My husband has much greater faith than I do. Like Abraham. Abraham, the “Father of Faith.”

4.) You can’t steal HIS story.

I never really thought of it that way… but the logic is solid. It’s like trying to parent your kids by putting them in a plastic bubble. You can’t keep them from every bad thing. Even if you did, they wouldn’t be able to live a fulfilled life. My story comes from my deepest, darkest moments. Those are the moments when God shines through. You can try to keep your children from every type of harm; but doing so will also keep them from their purpose, their destiny. Because God turns pain into purpose. We are driven by our experiences. Without the moments that cause us to call out for God, we live like we have no need of Him. I can’t steal my husband’s story, or my children’s stories; I can only live out my own and allow God to write theirs.

 

So, to sum it up, after three consecutive messages I received it: God thinks my husband is strong like Abraham. I should too. I see the evidence every day. One of the greatest stories of Abraham is his willingness to sacrifice Issac for the Lord. One day my husband’s legacy will be similar–having to be willing to lose his son in order to save him.

It’s important to note that God never expected Abraham to actually sacrifice his son, God was interested in Abraham’s heart. God judges us by our heart, not our actions. God is interested in the why not the what. So, if you’re going to be like Sarah, be the Sarah who grew more beautiful everyday for respecting her husband. Don’t be the Sarah who freaked out when Abraham left to make a sacrifice with her only son, likely traumatizing herself with her thoughts–that ended up being totally off the mark. Trust your God. And trust your husband. Your husband is well-intentioned and acting on his heart. Chances are your husband is scared to death of what he is doing, he just has more faith than you in the final outcome.

Dealing with Disappointment as a Step Parent

Dealing with Disappointment as a Step Parent

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One of the most important things we learn in life is how to handle disappointment. There are two extremes we can fall into–setting high expectations and always feeling disappointed, or learning to set no expectations at all. But there is a healthy medium in the middle we can all strive to meet. As a stepparent, appropriate expectations is an important goal to strive for.

There are many expectations that stepparents have. The most common of these expectations is that being a stepparent should feel like being a birth-parent. In my experience, the stepparents who have the hardest time lowering this expectation are those who also have their own biological children. Their expectations stem from a constant comparison with their biological children. These parents constantly find themselves disappointed when their stepchildren do not respond the same way their biological children do.

My first advice is this: you can have a wonderful, healthy, loving relationship with your stepchild(ren), but that relationship will NEVER be the same as the one with your biological child(ren). Let go of that expectation! It will only bring you heartache and drive your stepchild further from you. Don’t put yourself down, just like the differences between men and women, step and bio parents have different roles. That is OK. It doesn’t make you less important or less loved–it just makes your relationship DIFFERENT.

When a stepparent dynamic is in play–no matter the situation through divorce or death–the nature of the relationship with your spouse is different than that of a marriage without this dynamic. A major component being disappointment. A stepparent often finds themselves having to play the role of encourager to their spouse, being optimistic and setting high expectations to help their spouse avoid depression and disappointment of their own. We find ourselves building hope and trying to make everything positive, in a way that can come crashing down around us if we place too high of expectations on ourselves.

I say this all, not from having some great insight beyond yours that I must share, but because I sit here early in the morning, unable to sleep because of my own bout with disappointment.

Every story is different, but to simplify mine out of respect to my family and an ongoing court battle. My husband has been alienated from his children and denied access to them for several years, he fights a constant uphill battle and I am his biggest (and sometimes only) cheerleader. I know personally how difficult it is to be a child in that situation–afraid to love “the other parent.” So, I fight not only for my husband, but for the children because I know firsthand how desperately they need their father in their lives. That passion sometimes comes with great disappointment. Especially as a stepparent who has never even met their stepchildren.

Most of the time I think I can keep a lot of my expectations in the realistic realm because of my own experiences with my stepparents. But sometimes you just want something too much.

For me it was a hope that my husband would reconnect with his children for his birthday. After a long struggle with the family court system and years of delays, the judge ordered restoration therapy. Finally, my husband would be able to sit down with his kids and a court-appointed counselor and start rebuilding broken relationships and hopefully shed light on any emotional and psychological needs of the children that could be addressed with therapy–which in my personal opinion should be mandatory for every child who has to deal with divorce (and the penalty for any parent who keeps their child from therapy should be a prison sentence for neglect and abuse). Soapbox aside, there was finally light at the end of the tunnel and I was busy to the task of building up my husband as he has been beaten down so much from the journey that he didn’t even believe any of it would happen. We walked away from the courthouse that day and I was like, “Do you realize what this means? You are going to see your children again!” Of course, in my mind I was tacking on “and maybe even before your birthday!”

I saw a perfect opportunity for building a family memory, when I placed a bid at a silent charity auction for 4 tickets to a major league baseball game. I figured, by the time this game rolls around, my husband could have restored visitation… this would be so much fun…. I wonder if the kids have ever been to a major league baseball game before… so many thoughts swirled in my head. So, I put in a bid and left it up to fate. The tickets were worth so much more than I could afford to pay, so I really didn’t expect to win them… but I did. And it felt like destiny. I tucked them away, hoping to surprise my husband as soon as the kids came back into our lives.

But that day didn’t come. Lawyers sparing, counselors too busy to make appointments for weeks… everything in the universe seems to be against my husband reconnecting with his kids. Months go by and we are in the same place we were in before. It’s so frustrating, I just want to scream! And now the day has come and gone for the ballgame I had hoped to be our first family outing together. And I fight to hold back the tears from rolling down on the club-level seat tickets, as I imagine what could have been.

I want to keep encouraging my husband to go on, but at the same time feel so broken and helpless. It seems like there will never be an end to the pain. And my heart aches for the children, whose pain is intensified by their age.

I have to take my own advice and take my expectations down a notch. That would have been too quick of a turnaround to be possible, anyway. Going from years of separation, to happy family outing in a matter of months. I just want it so bad. For my husband, for the children, for my family as a whole. But we have to keep things in perspective and take life one step at a time.

Coincidentally enough, I learned a lot of these lessons from my own stepmother–even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I’m sure she had a lot of her own disappointment moments. But the one I remember in particular had to do with her cooking… You see, my stepmother would often try to cook dinner for us when my siblings and I visited. I’m not sure of all of her motivation behind it, but I do know that we were the opposite of grateful. I remember her cooking things like Chicken Parmesan, which I didn’t like and didn’t want to eat. But at the same time, I was a depressed teenager who blamed my stepmother for my parents failed marriage, so I also had an attitude and deep desire to not like anything about her or anything she did. So refusing to eat anything she made was just par for the course, really.  In retrospect, the night she chopped up fresh veggies and put together a huge build-your-own taco bar, knowing that it was my favorite meal, was probably her “olive branch” in a manner of speaking. I can only imagine how disappointed and hurt she must have felt that I constantly hated her when she had never done anything to me. I don’t remember everything that had happened that day, but I remember that I wasn’t feeling all that well. I don’t blame my stepmother for being upset and disappointed when she had made this huge dinner for me and I informed her that I wasn’t going to eat it. She probably thought I was just being a spoiled little brat–which really wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. I wasn’t feeling all that great, but not bad enough to continue to protest after her “I made this just for you and you will eat it,” moment. So, I reluctantly obliged and ate a bunch of tacos. Which I really regretted when I awoke a few hours after going to bed only to heave-ho the whole meal all over the bathroom.

While it wasn’t the most glorious of experiences, it’s one that marks a turning point in my relationship with my stepmother. Even if I hadn’t eaten that meal, the fact that she specifically made something I loved just for me was huge. And even though I’d have argued that the only reason she did it was because my dad was laid up with a broken leg and wouldn’t have been much help… it was even bigger that she got up to take care of me when I was sick.

So, take it from me. Little actions go a long way. So, don’t get caught up in disappointment when something doesn’t go as planned. Especially with children. Things take time. Usually more time than you think. Be patient and know that if you continue to do what is right you will be rewarded.

Next time you want to get upset that your stepchild didn’t give you a Mother’s Day card, or refused to eat the dinner you made, or wear an outfit you bought, or whatever the situation–don’t. Set high expectations for your relationship to flourish (I have a great relationship with my stepmother now that I am grown, that is always improving) but don’t put a time limit on it. These things take time. Don’t let the delay disappoint you.