Broken Home

Broken home, step-family, blended family, yours-mine-and-ours... These were phrases that I never imagined would have someday pertained to my situation when I married my first husband 13 years ago this coming August. I remember wondering on that day what our future would hold - never imagining that it would hold the heartache of lost love - a "broken home". When I held my first, sweet baby in my arms I never imagined she would someday call another woman "mom".

My current husband and I married our first spouses young and, I believe, could be great motivational speakers to teens on dating/marriage... the what not to do type. Would that be "unmotivational speaking"? I digress.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I haven't gotten to celebrate Mother's Day for very many years yet, and the years I have celebrated it has been mostly with children who are babies/toddlers from whom a mom expects very little for Mother's Day. The burden inevitably falls on the man of the house - who, just as inevitably, fails to meet my expectations year after year. I've often sat down and tried to delineate just exactly what my expectations are and if they could even be met, and I've pretty much come up with a solid, NO, because I don't even really know what I want to happen - I just want it to be spectacular. So, that being said, I've tried to lower my standards a bit. The girls came up, on their own, with a few hand-made cards which I loved. Levi managed to wake me with a sweet whispered, "Happy Mudder's Day, Mom," which I also loved. Austin was away from our house with his own mother this past weekend - for the first time since last November. Levi thoroughly disliked the implication that Austin was with his mom when, clearly, I was (in his mind) Austin's mom. He stated this several times throughout the weekend, to giggles from the girls and once a sigh, and a, "Give him a couple more years, and he'll understand," from Sadie.

Will he? The answer is no. Not really. His mind might comprehend the concept, but (by God's continued grace) his heart will never know the brokenness of the other people in our home. He has reluctantly accepted that the girls' "udder dad" (actual udders not included) comes to see them one night a week and every other weekend. He still has yet to understand why he can't accompany them when they go or why they have to be gone so often. His favorite phrase when they are absent is, "Where are da kids?"

When Mark and I both first considered getting married again, we knew that, at least statistically speaking, our marriage only had a 25% chance of survival. We took this very seriously as we considered the risks to ourselves and, more importantly, to our children. The idea that they could face heartache of divorce again was more than either of us was willing to put our children through if we could at all help it. We entered into this marriage with caution, advice from trusted counselors, and a lot of prayer. Circumstantially, this marriage hasn't been any easier than our first marriages were. In fact, in many ways it has been more difficult as we never had a "BC" era (before children, that is). We were married after only a few short months of courtship; we have moved twice; we have five children total; and we deal with our ex-spouses and their spouses and the absence of some of our children on a semi-daily basis. The truth, we have realized, is that marriage is difficult - no matter who happens to be your spouse. It is filled with the same unfulfilled needs, unmet expectations, problems, bills, disagreements, and questions as our first marriages were. The difference is that our current marriage is made up of two people committed to God first and then to one another and to our children.

The first few months of our married life were spent on Mark's family farm in Iowa. I have always loved farms, farmers, and farming, but I grew up very much in town. I reminisce about Mark explaining to me the "garbage rules" when the girls and I first moved to the farm with him and Austin. These consisted of, among other complexities, the fact that all food scraps were to be saved for the hogs to whom I was to go feed them at the end of the day. Now, if you've ever been on a hog farm you may have noted that the houses are always built upwind of the hog buildings/lots - and for obvious reasons. I relished the opportunity to feel like a real farm wife - shouting "sewweee!" to the swine with gusto. If, however, I happened to make the rookie mistake of going out to the lot to drop scraps when the wind was stirring to a different direction, I was met with the sniff and scowl when I came to bed for the evening... which meant, "Go take a shower. You smell." In addition to this newbie error, Mark found one morning after breakfast, that I had a pile of bacon and sausage separated from the egg shells and other leftovers from breakfast. He said, "What's this in a different pile for?" "Well," I replied with some amount of confidence, "the pigs surely can't eat themselves. That's just wrong." He responded gruffly (but with a slight smirk), "If one of them drops dead in the lot, the rest go over and eat it. So I don't think they'll mind a little bacon." I look back on those things and laugh, because they were bonding moments for us. Laughter has often been used as part of our bonding process.

At the beginning, when we were all getting used to our new arrangements - changed up bedrooms, houses, even states - we sometimes got bogged down with all of the "new". It struck me one day that God had put us in the ideal environment for the healing of our broken places. Each of us were now in a household with 4 other people who knew the heartache of rejection, the pain of unfulfilled ideals, and the loneliness that comes from missing another person who is (or was) part of yourself. That has become our family pep-talk. It has given us reason to have compassion for one another when we might normally feel apathetic. It has given us an unspoken bond that is our own. I always remind the children that every family has pain - for some it is illness. For some it's the death of a loved one. For some, it is abject poverty or abuse. Divorce is our family pain. It is also our family bond.

Mark and I read a lot of books and other literature when we first got married about step-families. One book stated, rather harshly I thought at the time, that "blended families" is a nice name, but it's too "touchy feely". It doesn't deal with the reality that there is no way to "blend" a family. It basically said, "You're a step family, and that's all you'll ever be. So don't expect to blend, because your identity is that of a step family." I think the author of this material was trying to keep us from the probable starry-eyed assumption that we'll be able to take two families and make them into one. That was partly right. Yesterday, when Austin came home he neglected to acknowledge to me that it was Mother's Day. However, he told me how his mother had loved the ring he picked out for her and bought from my grandpa for her. Claire also said to me that she has "two moms". The selfish side of me reared its ugly head thinking, "What about me?! I do everything for you. They don't clean your dirty clothes. They don't fix your owies. They aren't there to crawl into bed with when there's a storm outside." I don't say these things, and I feel ashamed that I even feel them sometimes. The lucid part of me knows that I am SO happy that the girls have a loving step-mother, and I'm very thankful for her. I'm also happy for Austin that he got to visit his mom, as I know that's important to him.

The following is copied from Revive Our Hearts ministry website. It fell out of my Bible and landed on the floor recently, and I found it as I was sweeping under our kitchen table.

Proud People

Focus on the failures of others

A critical, fault-finding spirit; look at every- one else’s faults with a microscope, but their own with a telescope

Self-righteous; look down on others

Independent, self-sufficient spirit

Have to prove that they are right

Claim rights; have a demanding spirit

Self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation

Desire to be served

Desire to be a success

Desire self-advancement

Have a drive to be recognized and appreciated

Wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked

Have a subconscious feeling, “This family is privileged to have me and my gifts”; think of what they can do for God

Feel confident in how much they know

Self-conscious

Keep others at arms’ length

Broken People

Overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need

Compassionate; can forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven

Esteem all others better than them-selves

Have a dependent spirit; recognize their need for others

Willing to yield the right to be right Yield their rights; have a meek spirit

Self-denying

Motivated to serve others

Motivated to be faithful and to make others a success

Desire to promote others

Have a sense of their own unworthiness; thrilled that God would use them at all

Eager for others to get the credit; rejoice when others are lifted up

Heart attitude is, “I don’t deserve to have a part in any family”; know that they have nothing to offer God except the life of Jesus flowing through their broken lives

Humbled by how very much they have to learn

Not concerned with self at all

Willing to risk getting close to others and to take risks of loving intimately

I used to think that I was what was broken about our home. Now my prayer is that we ARE a broken home. That is what it will take for us to survive. That is what it will take for Levi and Violet to know - only conceptually - the pain that the rest of us silently share. That is who I pray that we will be - for the sake of one another and of our family.

By God's grace, He has blended us quite nicely. I don't know if I have ever seen anything quite as amazing. It's a miracle to me how our children love one another. I think that most days they are much nicer to one another than my sisters and I were to one another. We chose Levi's name for its meaning, "United; bonded together". It's nothing we have done. It's not due to a magic formula, and I wouldn't wish divorce on anyone, but God is taking our ashes and turning them to beauty. He is taking our broken pieces and making a mosaic. I am including some of my favorite family photos in this blog so that you can see what He is doing with us. If you think of us, thank the Lord that he placed us in a family, and ask that He would continue working to make us a "broken home".