In the Shoes of a Single Mom: Part 1

She is lonely.

She craves for something more.

She wants to believe in God and trust His plan for her life but her faith is failing her.

“Where are you God? Why am I going through this and why do I continue to feel lonely?

You said you would never leave me nor forsake me, but I don’t know if I believe that. Where are you?!!! And why haven’t you come to my rescue?

I go to work. I come home. I take care of children. I sleep. It’s the same thing every day.

Monotony.

I work hard but I can barely make ends meet financially. I’m struggling to just keep my head above water.

When will the struggle end?

I want to be loved. I want to feel the arms of someone at the end of every day, holding me close. I want to be honored, cherished, and treasured. I want someone to share my life with. If I had that, it would make the rest of life at least bearable.

I see all of my friends happy in love and I want to feel happy for them, but it is hard. I just want to scream “why not me?!” I struggle to hold back the tears when I see their happy “love stricken” posts on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m growing old and bitter. My heart hurts and I don’t see things getting better. When will this pain end?

I know that I’ve messed up in life, but I’m trying now. I’m trying to follow you God and I have been for a long time. How long must I pay for my mistakes? I know you can save me from this misery so why don’t you?

I’m tired of the loneliness and the heartache. Please God, Please! Reach down and change things for me. Help me out here! I. Can’t. Take. This. Much. Longer.”

Have you ever been in these shoes? Have you ever craved for something more?

Have you known someone living in these shoes? Do you wonder what to say to them?

I have felt some of these feelings, but even still, it’s hard to know what to say to this person. You want to share with them that Jesus is all they need, that He is the only one who can satisfy those deepest cravings for love and relationship. Personally, I’m internalizing that more and more every day.

But that is so hard to feel. You know it in your head but it’s tough to take what seems abstract and make it a concrete fact.

I want to tell her that it will all be okay. That God will pull her through this. Because He will.

But sometimes, she only needs me to listen.

To really listen.

To understand that her faith waivers at times and to hold back a “cookie cutter” response to her pain. To not give her all the “answers” or tell her what to do but to show her empathy. Often, she just needs someone to say “I’m so sorry” and validate her feelings.

She needs someone to just help her get through today and remind her that even if we don’t understand why, we can take one step at a time, together.

So take the pressure off of yourself to fix everything for her, even though you want to. Simply be her friend. Sometimes, that’s all she needs.

Is there a friend of yours who needs someone to take the time to think about what it would be like to be in their shoes and empathize with them? I want to encourage you to find one person today that you can reach out to and offer a listening ear. Vow in your heart to try to see things from her perspective, to understand her heart.

Take some time out of your busy schedule and meet her for dinner. Make an effort to text or call to check on her. Send her an encouraging card. Find small ways to show her you care and be intentional about it.

Most importantly, stop talking so much and start listening more.

If you have been in these shoes before, what is it that you would like to see and hear more of from your friends? What can we learn from you today?  I would love the opportunity to hear your heart if you would be willing to share.

The Spirit of Transparency

Transparency

I will talk about it often. I will use the word frequently. It is my calling. And when I write or talk about transparency, I am referring to who we are as a person, not the external appearance.

And… We should be real. We should stop pretending to have it all together all the time. We, ALL of us, struggle during life and true Christian community only comes from authentic relationships with each other. It is within this community that we should be free to open up our insecurities, fears, hurts, and failures.

However… being transparent with everyone about everything is not always advised. There are some people, sadly, that will only take what you have shared with them and use it to launch an attack on you. They will use your vulnerability to hurt you.

There are 2 major ways in which you can be transparent.

1. You can be transparent about your past. If your past is painful, whether it be how you were hurt by someone else or your own destructive behavior, you should consider talking to someone or a small group of people that would show you understanding and grace and be trustworthy.

However, you would need to pray long and hard before you shared on a public platform. It would be a brave step and could be used for God’s glory, but only when you are ready and under the right circumstances. God knows where you’ve been and He understands if you are not ready.

Being transparent in this matter is important but you don’t have to share with the public in order to “be transparent”. It is your PAST and ultimately needs to be let go. It is only after letting it go and the effects it has had on you as a person, that you can find true healing. Then, maybe you can share with the public, for the right reasons.

2. You can be transparent about your present failures, inadequacies, and weaknesses. I think this is important within a Christian community of trustworthy people. Because of the nature of some struggles, it is usually best to find a community of people within your own sex. (Vulnerable conversations should never be held with someone of the opposite sex unless it’s your husband.)

 It is comforting to know that other women have the same struggles as I do and that I am not alone and I want others to feel the same. It is through these authentic relationships that we can draw closer to Christ and work on the things in which we struggle.

Living as if we have it all together in front of everyone is pretending to be someone we are not. However, we don’t have to share all of our struggles with the world in order to “be transparent”.

 The Spirit of Transparency

 The spirit of transparency deals with your heart. You are being transparent if, in general, you are being authentic about who you are with others. This does not mean that you should air all of your dirty laundry and share all your struggles with the world. This does mean that you readily admit that you are not perfect, that you fail at times, and that you do have weaknesses and things with which you struggle.  It really depends on your story and it details as well as your position in the healing process.

 There will be times that God calls you to share specifics with certain people. Listen for His calling and His lead. Your story and experiences might be the story that could lead someone to the healing waters only God provides and you should never let your fear of sharing hinder those conversations. There may be a time when He wants you to make public your story. This is between you and God and is about using your experiences to help others.

 For me, today, I can share some of my life story with you, the public.  I am at a point in my life that I could personally share more than I do, but I choose not to at this time because of the nature of my story and the other people involved in it. I am praying about how and when I should share more and waiting for the undeniable approval of God.

 Maybe someday, I will be able to share more. But until then, I admit to you that I do not have it all together, I make mistakes every day, I have made poor decisions that have had a huge negative impact on my life, I have fears, I struggle with thoughts of inadequacy, etc…. and the list can go on and on. I can also confidently share that I have never been more determined to be a better person, wife, and mother and to follow Christ more diligently. I am, after years of hiding behind secret doors, doing my very best to live transparently.

And THAT is what Christ wants from me.

Baggage – Let it Go

I am wounded. Deeply. And I am still healing. One day I think I’ve come a long way in the healing process and another day something happens to remind me that I still have a good distance to go. There are still those things… past “baggage” that I cling to, or pick back up, that affects the here and now. It comes from several sources, including my own mistakes and poor decisions.

Merriam Webster defines this type of baggage as “intangible things (as feelings, circumstances, or beliefs) that get in the way.” And do they EVER get in the way! They get in the way of joy, peace, relationships, faith, and a whole host of other amazing words to describe good things.

My baggage was once again brought to my attention again the other day with my husband. He is an amazing man full of grace and patience (he has to be with me or we wouldn’t have made it this far). He has never given me reason to believe otherwise. Yet I still question it. At times, deep within me (because I try to ignore it), I still question him and his integrity. I wonder if he truly is the man that I see every day. Part of the reason for this is my own lack of integrity in the past and part of it is the lack of integrity of other people who have hurt me.

This “baggage” and transference of my past to him “GETS IN THE WAY” of us having a solid relationship. I am quite honestly struggling with it.

We attended counseling for months before getting married. One thing that sticks out in my mind from our sessions is that we are to “assume the best” in each other. That is easy to hear and think “I can do that” until you get in the moment and what you “see” and “hear” contradicts what is truth. Our past and our baggage shapes how we view things and hear things, despite what we want to believe. When you have experienced a traumatic situation, your view of reality can be somewhat skewed at times.

Take for example the woman who lives through a house fire in which she was afraid for her life and the lives of her family. They escape but she has nightmares about the experience for years and occasionally even smells smoke when there is no smoke. Or the child that lives through abuse from his dad. He grows up thinking that men cannot be trusted and is suspicious of even the most noble people. Or the woman who lived through an affair in her marriage who is suspicious of everything and everyone.

Our fears and experiences can sometimes alter reality. It is up to us to figure out what these are and work to see things as they truly are rather than how our emotions and/or fears lead us. It is up to us to decide to give those to Jesus and let His healing waters flow over us.

So here is what I am going to do today. I am going to let go, again, of all my past. I am going to show myself grace. I am going to show others grace. I am going to show my husband grace. I am going to keep fighting my emotions and tainted reality and seek to see others through Jesus’ eyes. I’ve done it before but when I let my guard down, the baggage creeps back in. So I will do it again. It will be a continual process until I no longer have to worry about it. This may be the time it sticks. But it may not. And I will keep working at it.

“There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

…a time to search and a time to give up;

a time to keep and a time to throw away” Ecclesiastes 3: 1,  6

This is is the time to give up up our baggage and throw it away. Will you join me? What is your baggage? Is it “getting in your way”? Take some time right now and drop it. Let Jesus take the weight from you and give you peace. And if it comes back, do it again. We can do this with His help! I am confident that through Him, we can do anything (Philippians 4:13). We just have to be aware of what is going on inside of us and be real about it.

It is so good for me to write these words. Being transparent is freeing. Find someone you trust and share your heart with them. Share what is deep within you so that you can let it go. Share it with Jesus and share it with someone else. Together, and with God as our lead, we can do this!

I am saying a prayer for you today… the one who is reading this with pain in your heart because of the past you carry with you. You are loved and you are special. God’s grace can cover all your past failures, hurts, and betrayals. Let Him take it from you.  If needed, daily give it to Him until it’s gone for good!

Keeping it Real,

~ Angie Jenning

 

The Dream Struggle

I dreamed again last night. The emotions that gripped me when I awoke were more than I could control on my own. I couldn’t shake the feelings that came over me. Sometimes I don’t even remember the dream, just the emotions that come because of it. But this morning, I remembered at least part of the dreams.

Dreams have more hold of me than they should. I absolutely despise them. My history with dreaming is intense. Starting at a young age, I had nightmares and dreams sometimes too strange to even try to explain the bits and pieces that I remembered when I woke.

They still haunt me today though they have changed some over the years. I used to dream of burglars and murderers entering my room at night. Though I still have those occasionally, now my dreams have transitioned to reflect my internal struggles of self worth. In a nutshell, my dreams reflect my deepest fears. At a young age I feared mean people. Today, my fears are of failure and inadequacy.

That’s the kind of dreams I had last night. Whatever I was doing, I could not do it well enough. I let people down. I failed my children. I couldn’t handle my day to day job of being a teacher, wife, friend and mom. Every time I woke up, I did not want to fall asleep again, but the fatigue was more than I could withstand and I kept going back to sleep to dream again. It was exhausting physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I woke up for the final time this morning in tears. My husband asked what was wrong and I had a hard time telling him. I honestly didn’t know at first. It took me a while to analyze what had happened. When I finally let my emotions go, I couldn’t stop crying. I cried on his shoulder, I cried when he left, I cried on my way to work, I cried throughout the day. I kept willing myself to keep moving but it was so hard to do. I just wanted to go back to bed and sleep… without dreams.

It seems as if sometimes I get it. I understand my worth found in Jesus and that I am beautifully and wonderfully made. I know that His love is all I need and that at times I will fail, but that He loves me anyway and helps me get back up. I know that I am doing my very best in what daily life brings me even if it is not and will never be perfection. I even do my very best to encourage other women in this area! I know how I SHOULD feel and what I SHOULD believe. And I’m getting better at internalizing that. But there are some days that I just struggle with not feeling good enough, for anyone or anything.

It sounds silly as I write this. It’s a dream! Dreams are not real! Dreams have never and will never define me. Dreams have never and will never define you. Just as other people, situations, failures, and outside influences have never and will never define you.

Your Creator made you to be exactly who you are. You are only defined through the perfection of Christ’s hand on your life. You will never be perfect but because of Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross, you don’t have to be! He paid the ultimate sacrifice to cover all of our shortcomings.

We may not be perfect on our own, but through the lens of Jesus’ blood, we are perfection. “For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.” Hebrews 10:14

As for my dreams, I see some of them as a window into my soul and bringing to light what I need to work on within myself. I don’t like them at all and I wish they would go away for good, but I wouldn’t be doing the work necessary to overcome these fears in this moment today. I am going to choose to believe that God is working through them to continue working in and through me. As hard as it is, I am going to choose to look at it positively. I am going to choose to start rejoicing in the fact that He makes all things new and is renewing a steadfast spirit within me.

Will you join me today in rejoicing through the struggles? Will you join me as we embrace our weaknesses and throughout our efforts to improve on them, continue to see ourselves through the lens of Christ? Will you join me as we let ourselves off the hook for being and becoming perfect and understand that our heart being in the right place is what God wants for us? Will you give yourself the amount of grace that God gives us?

Keep striving to be better, but give yourself some slack. Do your best and let Christ fill in the holes!

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14

The Sun is Always Shining

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;

I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.  Isaiah 42:16

I was in a pit of despair. The lowest of lows in my little mind. I had made some terrible mistakes. I had been involved in a sinful and secretive life. My marriage was dissolving. I was realizing how battered I was. I had lost friends. My family was questioning me and my decisions. Except for a few friends and my counselor, I felt like the whole world was against me. I wondered if the sun would ever shine in my life again. I didn’t know how it would. My life had been dark for so long I didn’t know if it were even possible to see light again. I was in too deep. There was no way out.

This is me just three years ago. I knew in my mind that God was there. Somewhere. But I wondered if I would ever find Him. I wondered if I would ever see His light again.

As I reflect on reasons why there is darkness in someone’s life, I believe there are two reasons the sun might not be shining.

1. Sometimes bad things just happen to people who are living the best they know how in God’s graces. Like the story of Job in the Bible, there’s no good reason it seems for the trials. It just is. It’s hard to understand sometimes but resting in the fact that God has it all under control and trusting that good will come of it is the best way to cope.

2. You have made bad decisions in your life and are living through the consequences of those decisions.

The reason the sun was not shining for me is primarily because of bad decisions on my part. There were some things out of my control that just happened to add to the misery I was already in, but my decisions had landed me in a place in which I was very deep in the pit of despair and darkness.

I started to realize how much my actions had affected where I was in life at that moment.
(It starts small and you think it’s no big deal… but sin has a way of building and building and you don’t even realize what’s happening. It only takes a series of small decisions to eventually lead to disaster). My sin had led me to continual suffering and the weight of it was on my shoulders.

Over the course of the next three years, I allowed God to start working in me. It took baby steps and failed attempts at learning how to live life again with Him in the lead. I wanted to return to the God of my childhood. I wanted to bask in the glory of His light once again. It had been so very long and I sincerely and passionately longed for it to return.

After giving it all over to Him again and living life on my own for a while, God started showing me glimpses of His light again. Even though there were clouds still thick above me, the sun was starting to shine again. I could see it peeking through the clouds. I was grateful for it because it had been so long.

I am newly married and we were on my honeymoon last month flying to our destination. My thoughtful husband instructed me to look out of the window, then told me “The clouds are below us but the sun always shines up here.” Wow! I just sat in deep thought for quite some time letting that sink in.

Let this sink in for you…

Above the clouds, the sun is ALWAYS shining. No matter the cloud cover that we may see from the ground, the brightness of the sun is always there. We just may not see it at the time.

I look back on my life and see how much this is true. Though I felt like the sun was no longer there, it really was. It was just waiting for the perfect moment to peek through the clouds. I was needing to change and needing to be refined by fire. What happened to me and because of my actions was a catalyst of change and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I am a better person because of it.

Sometimes, we go through darkness for reasons that we do not know. Sometimes it’s clear to us later in life. Sometimes, it’s not. But God is always there, even if we may not see Him at the moment.

If things are rough in your life, know that the light will shine again. It’s there, above the clouds, just waiting to shine in all its glory into our lives. Believe it! That hope can take you a long way in your journey.