Broken

Broken.

It’s how I feel this morning.

Completely broken.

And alone.

Going thru a divorce after being with someone for 24 years is hard. You think you’ll be with them forever and then everything is ripped from your life. But you survive. You move on. You find happiness again in what remains. You stand strong in your faith and you keep on trying.

But this parenting thing. Man, it is H A R D!

And it doesn’t matter what I think, or say, or do, or even how hard I try…some days, I just F A I L.

I cried myself to sleep last night. I haven’t done that in a long, long time. And then I woke up this morning, trying to figure it all out. I think a part of me thought that if I tried hard enough, my adopted children would figure it out. They would finally accept that someone loves them. That someone is there for them. That no matter what life has thrown at them, there are people who are there for them. That they can trust. They can move forward. They can leave the past behind.

And then, their problems would all go away. I could fix what had been broken in them.

And on weeks like this, I am reminded….no, it is thrown in my face, that I haven’t even begun to fix them. I can’t fix them. It doesn’t matter how much therapy they have. How much love is given to them. How hard I try. They are B R O K E N.

They will lie and cheat and take what they want.

Because they are broken. And the fixer of all things cannot fix this. Because it isn’t about me.

My older children reminded me of this while I cried. I guess I have done something right, because they are great encouragers. 🙂

What I can do is lean on Him and remember that I cannot let it break me. When I am weak, He is strong…it doesn’t feel like that so much today.

But I will continue to try. I will not give up on them. And I cannot give up on myself.

To every parent out there who feels like giving up; there is someone out there who feels the same. I truly believe that parenting is the hardest thing we are called to do. But if we are called to be parents of these beautiful children, then parent we must.

This is me, breaking thru beautifully, one step at a time.