Sometimes I'm a real DING DONG

Klyde Warren Park is a COOL park in downtown Dallas that sits atop a tunnel.  It was scheduled to open and one of the board members at my school gave free tickets to the opening.  I grabbed two for John and I.  The girls were going to be with their dad and Edward so it sounded fun.  Ding Dong move number one:  we get on the train to ride it down to the park from John's job.  I realize I left the tickets in the car in the parking garage.  So we get off the train, ride the reverse train back to the garage and get the tickets.  We get BACK on the train to downtown, walk to the park enjoying the night and the walk through downtown.  When we get to Klyde Warren, it is oddly dark and quiet.  Ding Dong move number two:  the "grand opening" is next week...geesh.  So much for our super cool weekend sans kids.  We decided just to walk around and look at buildings and see what we see.  The kids call.  All heck has broke loose at their dad's house and the kids are calling.  Welcome to parenting, dad.  Instead of freaking out and calling the police, I make sure everyone is okay and that they feel that they are safe (despite whatever craziness might be ensuing) and let them go.  I learn a little more with each valley that I have to trust God to protect them and let them figure this out on their own as well as seeing the situation for what it is...the good and bad.   And I needed the ex to see that parenting is hard...it's not all disneyland rides and fields with flowers and sweet feelings.  This is part of it as well.   He kicked Edward out soon afterward.

Solomon's Court

Edward lived with his dad for a while.  Oh, and his dad let me know how just a little time with him and he had straightened Edward ALL OUT.  Ever since the divorce, with EVERY set back or struggle a child has gone through...the bad is always me being a bad mom, and the good is always his being a good dad.  VERY ODD.  It's a thought I often have to hold captive to truth and know that I have done the best I can with what I have.  I have never claimed to be perfect. But I was there for it all...in all my imperfection, loving the way I thought best.  And, to be sure, dude, I don't care where the help comes from.  When you pray for God to use someone/ANYone to get to your child, it does NOT matter who it is.  Angels come in all shapes and sizes and I am open to whomever God will use.  Reminds me of the two women in Solomon's court who both claimed to be a child's mother.  Solomon, in his wisdom, said to cut the child in two knowing the real mother would rather let her child go than see it hurt in anyway.  Lord, if Your angel happens to be my ex-husband, bring it on.  John 16:33 has already assured me that the victory is Yours, so whatever it takes is okay.  It wasn't long, however, before the shine began to wear off.  

interrupted

I've always been a slow processor.  I can act in times of emergency by reflex, but with thought...I need to ruminate, churn over, work through words, thoughts, actions.  We were in Colorado with very limited EVERYTHING.  There's no cell service, no TVs in cabins.  Internet access is limited and SLOW.  That's the way it's suppose to be up there.  I always call it "Mayberry"  from the Rascall Flatts song.  Without TV, cell phones, etc...people, kids, families interact.  That night, late in the evening before I went to bed I got on Facebook for a moment...that's all you really can do...and see the events unfolding in Dallas.  Immediately I panic and email my husband..."what's going on?" "Are any of your guys (police officers) on SMT involved?"  He was back in Dallas and news apparently was conflicting and he has never been one for TV anyway. Late at night, while I slept...I got an email that Mike Smith was in surgery.  I didn't see it until later the next day...later AFTER I got his call on the land line that Mike had passed away.  I cannot tell you the sucker punch that it was.  

We tried to crowd around my computer to try to get information.  In that moment the world as I knew it tilted.  The same thing happened when my dad died.  It is surreal.  The world goes on and you look at people's faces and want desperately for them to see that your world has just been rocked, but life goes on.  It does...that's the way it should be.  But, this was different.  The world cannot go on the way it was.  I cried out for Jesus to come.  It was cowardly.  My first instinct was for it just to be gone...it is too much for me to stomach.

Some background...I grew up in St. Louis.  It was a very mixed community.  My best friend, Heather Smith, was black.  I didn't really get that.   She was just my best friend.  I can look back at pictures and see her skin color was different than mine but it didn't registrer back then.  I really didn't know there was a difference until "Roots" came out on TV...the original version.  I was in 6th grade and it was horrific to watch.  For the most part nothing changed, however.  The people I had relationships with...we stayed the same...they were my friends.  But, the people that didnt' know me and I had no idea who they were hated me.  I was threatened in the girl's bathroom by three black girls who had no clue who I was nor did I know them.  For the first time in my life, I saw color.  One of the saddest days.  

So, I TRULY don't get people that hate someone else because there skin color is different.  What in the world is wrong with them?  That being said, I also am realizing that I don't get the experience of living in this society with skin of a different color.  I see my world through my very myopic eyes.  In my little corner there is no difference.  I need to look outside my little corner and try to understand.

I have quiet time in God's Word's (my lifeblood) every morning.  Those last mornings in Colorado, when my schedule was interrupted by the arrival of other people and our getting ready to leave, my quiet time stopped.  Today I am "catching up" with the study I'm doing.  And today I take comfort in what He reveals in His perfect timing.  Thursday morning's reading showed me Jeremiah 22:16, "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.  'Is that what it means to know me?' declares the Lord.  He's talking about Josiah's kingship, but that is what the Lord requires of us all...defending the cause of our brothers and sisters.  And I thought I did it (again in my very MYOPIC view).  We served places and efforted to help God be known to others.  But it didn't go well.  I think God is showing me my very myopic sight.  I did it in comfort and in my own context without even reaching out to those I have relationship with to ask or have conversation with about their needs or their feelings.  

In Friday's reading (read today) I wrote down Habakkuk 3:2, "Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.  Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy."  I thought again of how I want Jesus to come (selfish), but that our world is desperately sick and that we, His church, need to be on the move to show love.  I thought of a song we use to sing in choir, "Make me an instrument of thy peace."  The word's of the song..."Where there is hatred, let me sow love.  Where there is injury,pardon.  Doubt, faith.  Despair, hope.  Darkness, light.  Sadness, joy.  Pardon, faith, hope, light and joy.  Love.  Make me an instrument of thy peace, Lord...of THY PEACE, of THY PEACE."  My myopic view needs to change.  Maybe we all need a new pair of glasses to see.  And...a hearing check.  We are so quick to speak our mind that we don't listen to each other.  

My world tilted.  I pray everyone's world tilted.  I pray we don't become complacent because, at this second, there is peace in our corner of the world.  I pray God changes my heart because I don't get it, but I want to.  I hope that if I am offensive, someone would love me enough to have that conversation with me so I can understand.  It's overwhelming.  The world needs to change...but the world starts with the circle I draw around myself and change everything inside of it so I can widen my circle and love the way God wants me to love...wants us to love each other.  

Jail break

He realized even his most heartfelt pleas would not alter our stand, so Edward sought desperate measures and called his dad.  My ex.  There are really not enough pages, time or desire to delve into that one.  He, my ex, would have the opportunity to be his son's hero.  See, they had a fractured relationship because at the beginning of our divorce he lived with his father for a year.  During this time, Edward felt neglected and abused...verbally.  He also got abused once physically which led to a police report and CPS investigation.  His dad, wanting to be the hero, wants me to financially support his cape and magic powers.  I explained we were not bailing him out and why...and tried to explain why my paying for HIM to bail him out was the same as me bailing him out.  Couldn't I put up the collateral?  Um, no.   I suggested that bailing him out wasn't helping him, but enabling him; but the urge to be hero is strong and I get it...he wanted a relationship again with his son.  So he bailed him out...with conditions.  With him, there are ALWAYS conditions.  Edward would move in with him.  He cut Edward's hair, changed Edward's wardrobe, got Edward a car, showed him off showing what a great dad he was.  Disneyland dad to the rescue.  

Sometimes when you stand, you stand alone

We were not walking through this just being "jerks".  We talked with people who loved us well and asked counsel.  But, there are those who disagreed.  Family.  And we were told how they couldn't believe that we would leave him there, no matter how we tried to explain.  We stood alone, but not alone at all.  I believed we loved him well.  And there was never a moment that "I love you too much" didn't preface every heartbreaking word after it.     

When the phone rings

One of the worst sounds in the world?  The phone call in the middle of the night.  It's never good.  We are lulled into the flow of daily dysfunction and getting by.  Did I mention in the middle of our insanity, I started a new job at a private school?  More on that later.  We got that middle of the night phone call.  Edward had come home late...and lit.  Apparently his car alarm went off and he couldn't figure out how to turn it off.  The cops came by and got the alarm off.  Because he was in front of his own home, they were gracious enough and told him to go inside and not come back out anymore.  Maybe pot makes you deaf...or just stupid.  He went back out to his car to smoke.  And got busted.  And was arrested.  The phone call was from jail.  One day...someday...it won't hurt to relive this.  His one phone call. The results were vastly different though.  There would be no bailing out.  No rescuing from the consequences.  We did go down there and see him.  UP jail is cush...they serve you Bubbas for crying out loud...that's not a punishment, that's a treat.  We talked to the officer.  Talked to a tearful Edward.  But, even the tears couldn't bring ransom.  The phrase I repeated, "I love you too much to not let you experience the consequences of your choices."  Let me tell you, it was not received with the intent that it was sent.  HARDEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE.  The phone rang many times with pleadings to get him out before he was transfered to a not so nice playground with not so nice people.  Please, Lord...PLEASE, let THIS be his bottom.  But my phrase repeated over and over with nothing but love in my heart for this boy that this tough lesson would be learned.