Decisions, Decisions

I really hate making decisions.

You thought I was going to say more, didn't you?  Fooled you.

Well, not really.

So, currently, my husband and I have been pondering some decisions about our family.  Off and on, we talk about moving.  My husband is a partial owner (with his mom and his two aunts) of his family's farm.  A couple of years back, he and I went out there for a Czech celebration in the town and looked through the museum that contained a lot of his family's history and I was able to see the two properties that make up the farm.  His grandfather sold off the piece of land that contained the farmhouse, but a neighbor continues to farm the land for them.  At the time we were out to visit, the current occupants of the farmhouse were trying to sell the house and move out of state.  We started talking then about what it would be like to move out to the old farmhouse.  At that time, it was sort of a "what if" or "wouldn't it be nice" or "someday" kind of discussion.  We tabled it and moved on.  At the time, the kids weren't totally opposed to it when they heard that they might be able to have a horse or other farm animals.

There are several reasons why this topic has come back up lately.  For one, we know that my husband cannot continue to be a metropolitan paramedic until retirement.  The job is hard on the body and we can't conceive of him jumping in and out of an ambulance and running around and lifting patients, etc. when he is 60+. So, we began to think of other options.  He could use the bridge program to become a nurse, but that will be time and cost intensive.  The other idea was to move to the country and be a rural EMS worker because there would be a lot less activity than he gets in an average day in the big city of Kansas City, Missouri.

The other reason this has come up is because of the issues we have been having with the children.  Would it be more beneficial to them to move out to the country and to attend a smaller rural school?  Would I worry about them less if the "village" helps to look after them?  I know that they can get into just as much trouble in the country or a small town as in a large city, but I think I could give them more freedom, there would be less dangers, life would be slower, secrets would not stay secret, etc.  Would peace and quiet and a slower lifestyle be beneficial to Billy?  Would the girls have more opportunities to have close friends while I can know their parents, giving them more opportunities to spend time with friends?  Would a simpler, quieter life force us to spend more time on the most important things: God, family, and friends?  There are days when I very much envy the lifestyle of the Amish.  I know that's idealistic because I seriously doubt I would enjoy cooking all day from scratch, the cleaning, the sewing, the gardening, all the hard work.  But, I sometimes regret the technology we have and long for the simpler life.

Another reason may be selfish, but as the old saying goes, "if mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!"  Granted, I have never been a country girl.  I embrace a lot of country girl ideals, but the fact of the matter is that I was born in the city and have lived in the city or suburbs all my life.  I don't know any other way.  That made me wary, at first.  Could I cope with being far away from the nearest store, mall, or fast food restaurant?  I like convenience.  I like being able to run somewhere "real quick."  I hate having to drive too far to find what I am looking for.  I am a forgetful person and I have lost count of how many times I have gone grocery shopping, only to realize I have forgotten items and had to make a return trip.  And while I have previously been a go-getter with plenty of energy, I am getting older and have gained weight and have plenty of aches and pains.  I no longer have the energy I did.  I am trying to lose weight to regain the energy, but my fear is that it is gone forever.  I do not like hard labor.  I am tired.

But, because I am tired, I sometimes long for the peace and quiet of a rural setting.  I have been recently grappling with the idea that I am seriously screwed up.  I joke about being crazy, but the truth is that I have some very real mental and emotional issues.  Some days, I find the world so overwhelming, I want to retreat.  While isolation may seem depressive and the wrong way to deal with things, I am beginning to think that it is the only way I can cope with life and the world.  Some days it is too much to deal with.  Overload is not fun for me.  I am beginning to wonder if some isolation would be beneficial to my mental and emotional health.  Would I be a better wife and mother if I had some measure of peace?

However, the downsides to a possible move are many.  While I don't think that Billy or Kimberly would mind the move terribly much, Arrena has voiced violent opposition to this plan.  She does not want to leave her friends.  Having faced the same situation when I was a teenager, I can totally relate and sympathize.  I was a brat and refused to let my mom move.  However, I have learned that the friends and boyfriends that I was loathe to leave behind are nowhere to be found now.  I am reluctant to move the kids again, though.  They have had enough stress and trauma and moving around in their lives that I would hate to uproot them again and thrust them in a totally new and unfamiliar environment.  I had hoped that this would be our last move and the kids could call Raytown/Kansas City their home forever and would stay at their current schools throughout.  However, they are not the first kids to ever have to move around.  And compared to some, have hardly moved around at all.  My mom's family moved around a lot in search of work.  She attended 13 schools in her lifetime.  Military families do it all the time.  So, I am sure they would survive, though there might be a good measure of pouting for a while.

I also don't want to leave my house.  While I love looking at different houses and imagining dream homes, I am attached to this house.  We added on to this house just 3 years ago and I was able to get everything I wanted in the add-on.  Our bedroom is oversized to allow for a couch and a TV (though sometimes that makes me feel like I am isolating myself from my kids).  We have a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom along with a separate shower stall with dual shower heads.  We had a second washer/drier hookup installed, so we could both keep our washers and driers and be able to wash laundry in half the time.  I was able to pick out the color and the flooring just the way I like it.  I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of painting a sky/cloud scene on my bedroom wall, which makes my room an extremely peaceful place for me. And even in the rest of the house, I have made some improvements to make it "our home" such as painting Billy's room Spiderman colors, and doing a pink and purple cowgirl theme in the girls' room.  While I know we could remodel and make a new house "our home," I just hate the thought of giving up this space that I and my husband designed just for us.

I also don't relish the thought of leaving my church family or my job.  While I would love to again be a stay-at-home mom or just a photographer on my own terms, I do love my job taking newborn photos at the hospital.

While one of the points in favor of moving would be that the cost of living would be lower and we could better afford our bills, moving in itself is an expensive undertaking.  It costs a lot to be in transition on selling a house, buying a new house, moving from one job to another, moving trucks, trips back and forth, fixing things to make the current house attractive to buyers or fixing things to make the new home livable, etc.

Then there's always the dilemma of WHERE to move.  Is the family farmhouse still available?  If not, would it be silly to move to the area anyway?  Where can Scott find a job?  And what's the distance in relation to where the kids' dad lives because you can't be too close or too far away?  Or what about the distance to our family, who we'd like to visit and have come visit us?  It might be fun to buy his Aunt's trailer in Branson, but would our growing family have enough space in a trailer?  It would be awesome to live right on the lake, but there would be a lot of work to be done to make it livable year-round.  And I'm assuming the cost of living in Branson would be higher due to the tourist industry.

One of my best friends is moving to a small town in northern Kansas and I am mourning that loss.  We even talked about Scott getting a job with the company that hired her husband, brother, and brother-in-law.  But, that would be a total change of job field for Scott, which is a major life change.  And with her sister and brother living nearby, it might be silly of us to follow her when her time will obviously be divided.  The draw for Scott to following them is that the company and the community sounds very faith-based.

The other decision we have been weighing briefly was sending the kids to a Christian school.  I was raised in public schools and did just fine.  Scott spent his whole life in Christian schools, so we have different backgrounds.  And we have different views.  I wrote a paper about this in college, stating in essence, that in a perfect world, the choice of education would be based on each individual child as each child is different and will learn and grow differently in different environments.  However, it isn't necessarily feasible to have one child in public school, one in Christian school, and one being home-schooled.

We started discussing this because of the issues with the children.  Both girls have been breaking the rules and having boyfriends behind our backs, sometimes lying and covering up their deception.  Both girls have been having attitude problems, Kimberly getting into trouble for mouthing off to her teacher.  Billy is obviously struggling at school.  I have been concerned about Arrena's school since I heard there was a rape there during school hours two years ago.  And there is the friend issue.  Arrena believes that Kimberly's friends are bad influences on her and tells us this all the time.  And based on some of the things Kimberly was hearing at school and Google-ing to find out what it meant, I am inclined to agree with her.  Arrena gets so angry when we bring this up, but she told me at one point that her friends were telling her that her mom would never know if she had a boyfriend, so she should just go ahead and have one.  She says not all of her friends said this and it was an isolated incident that we shouldn't judge her friends on.  But, obviously there is some concern about the influence on them.  With all of the difficulties our family has had, we have been seeking a Christian counselor to work with us, that understands our values.  So, the same could be argued about the kids' education.

I am not one that believes sending them to a Christian school will solve all their problems.  I know there are bad kids in private school too.  I also believe that their primary education should come from home because if it isn't taught and modeled at home, there is little the school can do.  The teachers cannot raise our children.  However, I sometimes think it might be nice to have that reinforcement, to have them being taught the Bible in school, to have friends and teachers that share their faith.

One of the downsides, again, is taking them away from what they have grown accustomed to.  Again, I think Kimberly and Billy would do okay with it, but Arrena would fight and struggle with starting over somewhere.  But, it wouldn't be like moving far away.  She could still see her friends, just after school not during school.  The biggest drawback is the cost.  It is so expensive that there is really no way we could afford it.  We could try to get financial aid and I have heard some about getting government funding to be able to choose private education over public education, since, as taxpayers, we pay for the public school system.  But, it would boil down to Scott having to work a LOT of extra shifts, which is hard when his shifts are 24 hours.  Or it would entail him going to school to be a nurse to make more money, which initially costs more money and takes a while to complete.  It seems like it's impossible, but we know that nothing is impossible.

While Arrena totally flew off the handle when she caught wind of some of these decisions, without hearing the reasoning or understanding that it was simply TALKING, not a done deal by far, I know that these things may never come to fruition and if they did would be a while down the road.  We will pray for God's guidance.  If He leads us to move or send the kids to a Christian school, then by all means, we will follow.  But, if the doors remain shut, then it's a non-issue.  My thought at this point would be for Scott to put out some feelers, some resumes, for us to research and look around, be informed and then see what God does!

I'm Worn

I'm tired, I'm worn
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing
I've made mistakes
I've let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world
And I know that You can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That You can mend a heart that's frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that's dead inside can be reborn
‘Cause I'm worn

I know I need
To lift my eyes up
But I'm too weak
Life just won't let up
And I know that You can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

My prayers are wearing thin
I'm worn
Even before the day begins
I'm worn
I've lost my will to fight
I'm worn
So Heaven come and flood my eyes

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That You can mend a heart that's frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that's dead inside can be reborn
‘Cause I'm worn

Yes, all that's dead inside will be reborn
Though, I'm worn
I'm worn

This song feels like it was ripped out of my soul.  I could have written most of these words, if I were eloquent enough to describe the way my heart aches.

I have long felt a kinship to Christian singer Rich Mullins.  I always heard about him because he lived in my hometown of Wichita, Kansas, and was a worship leader at a church that I later attended.  One of his songs, "Calling Out Your Name," has a reference to a statue in Wichita, The Keeper of the Plains.  His songs sometimes pierced my heart because they were so insightful into the way I felt.  Later, I realized that the reason I felt that Rich Mullins was a kindred spirit was because we seemed to struggle with the same pain.  I remembered reading in the book "Room of Marvels" that Rich was 'haunted' by the pain of the world.  I am now reading "Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven," Rich's biography.  I'm sure I will find plenty more that is quoteworthy, but so far, this one caught my attention:

"Much of his pain, as Jim Smith remarks, came from the fact that he saw too much and felt too much.  His mother, Neva, said, "He could see the pain in another person even before they could see it themselves."  Poets are a unique breed of human beings.  They ricochet between agony and ecstasy because they take everything so personally.  Where other people feel kicked by an unkind word, the poet feels disemboweled.  The slightest provocation can induce a fit of weeping or a fit of ecstasy.  Others cannot understand why he does what he does, and the poet is downright clueless himself.  Rich Mullins often endured loneliness, as many people do, but he suffered in a way unknown to most of us.  Such extraordinary sensitivity is a blessing and a heartache."

I completely relate to that because that's totally how I feel.  If it weren't for antidepressants, I'm not sure I could cope with the feelings.  I just wish that God would use me the way he used Rich.  Rich didn't suffer in vain--many people were moved and encouraged by his music.  I want to be used by God.  I don't want to be famous like Rich, but I don't want my suffering to be in vain.  Let it be for something good.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

(Originally written March 2013)

Oh wow, where do I begin?

This blog post will not be creative or clever or humorous.  This blog post is about me and my life lately, which has most definitely not been humor-filled.

So, after about four years of having my depression medicinally controlled, I recently had a relapse.  I've also been having panic attacks and I finally admitted I needed some therapy regarding my ex-husband trying to strangle me, so they diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder.  I have put on a lot of weight (not sure how since I don't eat much and have IBS) and have been living with physical pain for the past few months that has been getting increasingly worse.  My doctor has been trying to get my GERD under control and finally sent me to a specialist.  They did an endoscopy and placed a monitoring chip in my esophagus that recorded 233 reflux events in 2 days.  That impressed the unimpressable specialist, so he sent me to see a surgeon to consult about having a Nissen Fundoplication surgery.  I'd never heard of that before, but it's a surgery in which they wrap part of your stomach around the lower part of your esophagus in order to clamp it closed and prevent acid from coming back up.  If they are able to keep it laproscopic, it is a few days in the hospital and a two week recovery.  But, if they have to do open surgery, the recovery is six weeks.  My reflux has been so bad that I have aspirated numerous times on the acid, which is both extremely painful and thoroughly frightening.  However, the surgeon I consulted with told me that I was too overweight for that surgery and recommended a gastric bypass. Not only do I not want any bariatric surgeries, but my insurance won't cover them.  So, I guess my only other option is to lose weight.  My husband and I have started using Weight Watchers three weeks ago and so far, I have lost 7 pounds, so I pray it continues to help us.  Along with going to see the GI doctor, I have been trying to make the rounds, doing what my doctor has recommended.  Tried to see a OB/GYN about possible tubal ligation syndrome and some painful cysts, but her bedside manner left something to be desired, so putting that on hold temporarily and will seek out a better doc later on.  I'm also going to a psychiatrist and therapy for the aforementioned issues.  They changed my medication and that made things really interesting.  I had an allergic reaction to the new antidepressants and broke out in a rash and my hands swelled and went numb.  Another med I was given caused dizziness.  I felt like I was walking around in a narcotic fog.  I felt unsafe driving or going to work.  Between my extreme joint pain, the dizziness, and the depression, I felt like I could barely move.  The new meds seem like they are helping, but it's slow and I have been weepy in the meanwhile, which I hate.  I get really frustrated with myself that my body betrays me.  Everybody has stress, so why do I bawl and get migraines and have panic attacks when I am stressed?  Lately, I have felt like I am barely able to take care of myself, let alone my family, or have the strength to do my job or perform my household duties.

Arrena, my oldest, is 12 and in the 6th grade.  I have long considered her trustworthy and responsible.  However, the growing pains of starting middle school have been harder than we thought.  Things are different than when I was her age.  We didn't have texting and internet or social media.  So, I needed some time to think and pray and determine what the rules would be for her.  In the meanwhile, the rules were: no boyfriends, no texting/talking to boys on the phone, no boys on the internet.  We got her a cell phone for Christmas, primarily for texting her friends.  The rules of the cell phone were no boys, no deleting conversations, and mom had free reign to look through the phone.  One day, a friend called me to report some suspicious content on Arrena's Facebook page.  One of her friends had posted something about her having a boyfriend.  I confronted her about it.  At first, she tried to lie to me about it, but finally admitted this was her second boyfriend.  Much crying and talking and apologizing, and I made her break up with her boyfriend in front of me and didn't let her go to the Valentine's dance at school.  I thought that would be punishment enough.  A few weeks later, her sister ratted her out that after breaking up with the boy in front of me, she renewed the relationship until she decided he was cheating on her.  Her friends were telling her that her mother would never know.  As punishment, I took her phone for a week.  The following day, I went through her phone and found that she had another boyfriend.  She was talking to her friends about texting a boy, but I couldn't find any text conversation with a boy because she had deleted it.  I found cut-and-pasted conversations in her notepad, talking about "love."  I had known she had a crush on this boy and had asked her a few days before if they were "dating" and she told me no.  It turned out that she had hidden him in her phone under a girl's name.  It's not so much about the "boyfriend" because at this age, it's little more than a title.  However, we know from culture that "things" are happening faster and faster these days.  I want to protect my daughter which is why I have rules.  It's not as much about having a boyfriend as it is about breaking the rules, and lying, and sneaking around, and being deceptive.  So, this time the punishment had to hurt.  I took her phone permanently and grounded her from phone, internet, social media, sleepovers, and extracurricular activities indefinitely.  I think quitting drama club hurt her the most.  She started off defensive and angry.  We talked about how I cannot MAKE her obey, but that she has to decide whether or not she wants to follow Christ and what Jesus wants her to do.  She asked me if she had to break up with him.  I told her that judging by the last time, I couldn't make her do anything, but that she should figure out if she wanted to live in disobedience and what being Christ-like meant.  After a few days, she came to me and told me that she had ended the relationship.  I am not sure how to trust her or how long it will take to repair the broken relationship.  She has been complaining to everyone who will listen about how unfair the indefinite grounding is.  I'm sorry, but since when did these PRIVILEGES become RIGHTS?  Some days I really think about switching to an Amish-like existence.  I think it would be better for all of us.  And apparently her dad is criticizing my punishment behind my back, all the while telling me that he agrees and doesn't like her friends and doesn't believe she should be on the internet at all.  Nothing like some cooperation in parenting and undermining my authority.

Kimberly is 10 and in the 5th grade.  She has been having attitude issues for a couple of years.  I have been concerned about her mental and emotional health for a while.  She doesn't sleep well and was having some crying spells.  She followed her sister's suit this past year in going through puberty and that ramped everything up about 30 notches.  She went from being mama's girl and a touchy-feely kid to being mean, hateful, and not wanting anyone to touch her.  I tell her I love her and she says, "whatever."  I ask her what she's up to and she says, "what do you care?"  I try to hug her and she flinches like I'm diseased.  She used to crawl up in my husband's lap and begged me to marry him and now she treats him like something she stepped in.  And it's not just us.  I've caught her screaming at her brother that he is a freak.  She mouths off to her teacher.  And she tells off fellow-students. And before I even finished writing this blog, I discovered by accident that she'd been looking at pornography on the Internet.  Then I found out that she was contemplating cutting.  She not only told a friend of mine and admitted it to me, but apparently one of her friends reported it to an outside agency that reported it back to the school, so the principal pulled me aside.  She is now on a mild antidepressant.  Then her sister squealed on her, as payback, that she had a boyfriend too.  Talking with her about these things initially improved things.  The other day, she was throwing attitude at my husband and I and when I spoke to her, she started questioning her faith.  She said that she's glad it works for me, but it doesn't work for her.  She said that if God is real, He doesn't care about her because He isn't helping her.  This breaks my heart more than anything.  I know how hard life is and I can't imagine doing it without having God to help me, without having hope.  I don't have many expectations for my children as they grow up or any high and lofty dreams.  The one thing that I want for them is to follow Christ.  I want them to grow in his love and to be Christ-like.  I don't want them to struggle through life and make life-changing mistakes.  And I want to see them in heaven someday.

I've written about Billy's issues before.  He's 8 and is in the 2nd grade.  We have been dealing with his behavior issues for years.  He has been going to a psychiatrist and counseling for 3 or 4 years.  We have been arranging and rearranging medication for him as things work and stop working.  They never wanted to pigeon-hole him, but the working diagnosis is ADHD, ODD, and severe mood dysregulation, although his symptoms could also fit Asperger's, which we have long suspected.  We have had our fair share of problems with him.  Primarily his misbehavior was at home.  He occasionally would act out at school or church, but mostly, he saved his meltdowns for us.  He has jumped out his window, tried to run into a highway, threatened me with scissors, called 911 for the heck of it, screamed obscenities/threats/hate, and threatened to hurt himself, among other things.  When he gets really worked up, we have to hold him down for about 15 minutes and he seems to reset.  He obviously has sensory issues and we know that certain situations will overstimulate him and cause problems.  As this has been going on for so long with little change and he has become more and more violent, the counselor has recommended that we look into in-patient treatment for him.  This is not something that I want to do.  He's my baby and I can't imagine turning him over to strangers.  He is a mama's boy and I am afraid of how he would take it as well.  I will do whatever it takes to help him, but I pray that it doesn't come to that.  This year, he has started really acting out at school.  Numerous times, I get phone calls while I am at work from the school to come and get him.  He has been suspended once so far, if you don't count all the times he has been sent home early.  They have made accommodations for him over and over.  I have tried to get him an IEP or get him into a special ed program, but they don't want to test him yet so close to the end of the school year, and with so little data since he has only recently been acting out at school.  In the meanwhile, I feel like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.  He is running away from the staff, biting/kicking/hitting adults, throwing chairs, knocking over tables, totally out of control.  And it is usually over small things.  The other day he punched one of the support staff in her stomach.  I'm thankful it wasn't the vice-principal, who is pregnant.  They had to evacuate his classroom one day because he was on a rampage.  I don't know where we go from here because it sounds like the school is at the end of their rope.  I am afraid they are going to expel him and then I don't know what we will do.  When I talk to his dad about it, he blames us, the school, the medication, the doctors, etc.  He thinks we need to send Billy to him, that he needs more time with his dad (even though he goes months without seeing them of his own volition).  I sent the kids there for spring break and Billy's first day back, he was out of control at school again.  His dad thinks I should quit my job and homeschool Billy, even though he is not paying child support and when he does pay, it's an insulting amount.  I completed paperwork for evaluations from Children's Mercy and K.U. Med Center to try to pin down a diagnosis because right now, we are not trusting his psychiatrist.  When I try to research his diagnosis, I have trouble finding it and what I do find says the opposite of what he says.  We quit going to the counselor because he quit counseling Billy and switched to family counseling, which obviously isn't doing Billy any good and wasn't helping anyone else since Kimberly refused to talk to him.  I wonder how much longer we have before the violence at school becomes a criminal matter.  How long til they start calling the police when he hits the adults?  This has to be controlled before he is big enough to do damage to people.  How long will the school drag their feet before they acknowledge that he needs special education classes?  After two months of asking, I finally put my IEP request in writing.  I got a letter that they will contact me within 30 days, which is very close to the end of the school year.  I'm trying to fight for my son to have his needs met and be in a safe environment and not a drain on the staff, but then sometimes I feel like I am defending myself to them.  I feel sorry for him, that he is constantly in trouble, but what are we supposed to do???

When it rains, it pours.  Can't have one problem at a time.  And the world doesn't stop because you are struggling.  You have to go to work, you have to go to the store, you have to go to church, you have to keep going, while people all around you have no idea the turmoil that is going on inside of you.  You smile, you say "fine" when people ask how you are,  you put on the perky persona at work since depression doesn't sell.  Yet all the while, you feel like life is crumbling around you.  Why doesn't everyone else notice?  Why can't they feel the pain radiating off of you?  Why doesn't the world stop spinning?  And then you look around and wonder what is behind all the masks you see.  The cashier at the grocery store, the customer at work, the crazy driver that just cut you off--what private pain are they hiding?  And so you keep smiling, not because you feel like it or necessarily because you want to hide your pain, but because you want to give a tiny ray of hope to someone else who might be hurting.

People Who Hurt

(I don't like Blogger's new format.  Used to be, when I didn't finish a blog, but later came back and published it, the date would revert back to when I started the blog.  That's not happening anymore.  This blog was written around January 2013)

I don't like confrontation at all.  I would rather just slink away and lick my wounds in private.  And that's what I've always done.  I'm sure it's partly because that's my personality and partly a learned behavior.  My ex-husband was not exactly easy to talk to and even harder to argue with.  His temper made me afraid to talk about any real problems...and there were a lot of them.  So, I internalize.  Blah, blah, blah, psycho-babble.

Now I've been forced into two confrontations in one week.  It't not enough that I have stress in my life from every side.  Job stress, children stress, health stress, continuous ex-husband stress, plus I'm having a depression relapse.  No, two individuals had to bring confrontation to me.

To the family member who got feathers ruffled because I didn't immediately accept a Facebook friend request from someone who (I thought) was already on my friend list and then posted that I was a fatty that she didn't care about and then claimed her account was hacked: whether you believe it or not, I AM a nice person.  Do you think I couldn't have hurled back some insults?  Do you think I don't get angry or can't think up hateful things to say?  But part of being an adult and a Christian is controlling your tongue.  Not saying what immediately comes to mind.  Letting Christ control.  I am not perfect and I screw up plenty.  I am not tooting my own horn.  But, I want to be more and more like Christ.  So, instead of responding in kind, I pray for you.  When I FEEL like yelling back and telling you what I think of you, instead I am trying to forgive you and love you anyway and bite my tongue.

To the "friend" who abandoned me with no warning, no provocation then months later after I have made peace with it, shows back up asking me why we aren't friends anymore: isn't it sort of hypocritical to a) abandon and avoid me without telling me why, then tell me that if you did something wrong, I should speak up and tell you about it; and b) ask me to tell you what you did wrong and then when I do, you get defensive and cuss me out and run away again?  I know you have stuff going on in your life.  I wanted to be there for you.  I tried and then you cut me out of your life.  I have stuff going on in my life too, but do you care?  Were you there for me when my grandpa died?  Are you here for me when I am going through medical tests and doctors' appointments?  Are you here when my son is being kicked out of school or my daughter is breaking the rules and sneaking around or when my other daughter is struggling with depression?  Where were you when I had a confrontation with my ex-husband about the kids?  Are you around to help out and babysit when I am overwhelmed?  Where are you when I am stressed and struggling?  Since you obviously can't remember how things went down, let me refresh your memory: I invited you to several get-togethers and you refused every one.  You can say you have thought of my children every day, but you declined invitations to birthday parties.  Our mutual friend told me that when we would plan a get-together, your first question was whether I would be there because you didn't want to hang out with me.  If I was going, you refused to go.  After posting some portraits on my Facebook photography page and then copying the link to my personal page, I read a post from you about how pathetic it is for "some people" to post pictures over and over and that it won't get you more likes.  Then later that day, I find I have been blocked from your Facebook page and that you unliked my photography page.  You talked me into starting the photography business and now you won't support me.  This was all so junior high-ish and I don't have the patience or the heart to chase after someone who doesn't want to be my friend.  So, I unfriended you on Facebook.  I didn't hear from you at all after that.  Except I heard you were asking about me and saying you missed me.  You had my number. You could have called me any time.  Then I get this text message late at night, saying you missed me, asking what you did wrong, etc.  I answered you honestly and kindly.  You denied it all.  What more could I say, so I said nothing further.  I don't want to argue, I don't need friends like this, so I find it best to just say nothing at all.  There would be no convincing you, so why try?  So, what is your response?  To cuss me out and accuse me of being childish.  You want me to forget you ever texted me, delete your number, and have a nice life.  I love the added touch of "I tried."  You tried what--to insult me?  To start a fight?  Then three months later, out of the blue, I get a Facebook friend request?  Really?  The last words I heard from you were to cuss me out and tell me to forget you and then you think we can just be friends like nothing ever happened?  I pray for you and your children and I forgive you for how you treated me.  However, I will not be a doormat.  I will surround myself with friends who love me and are there for me, not ones that use me and insult me.  I am so sorry for the troubles you have in your life.  I pray that you find a friend who will be there for you and that you can have mutual respect with, but it's not me.  I would have loved to have been there for you, but I have to have boundaries or else I end up taking on more hurt and disappointment than I can emotionally and mentally handle.

Maybe this post sounds harsh and mean, but I have to get my feelings out here so they don't stay bottled up or explode onto others.  I get angry too.  I get hurt too.  But, I am striving to be like my Savior.  Lord, bless these two who have hurt me and help me not to be bitter and angry about it.