Halfmom is born

I love Craver VII’s comment on Mark Goodyear’s “Meme Week: My Secret to Productivity” blog. I too, understand the sense that something is “insisting on being birthed” that Craver describes. Tonight is one of those nights that I feel compelled, despite the lateness of the hour, to write and besides, the cheesecake isn’t done yet and I have to be awake another hour waiting for that.

College graduation is in about 24hrs for my daughter. As a single parent for the past 15 years, the focus of my life has been to take care of her, nurture her, raise her to be a godly woman and train her not to make some of the same mistakes that I have made. It’s funny that at times of great celebration such as these (and it is a celebration for I am most proud of the wonderful young woman she has become), that consequences of sin are most glaringly apparent in the conflict and lack of unity that occur when the “fam” is together. Sin has it’s consequences and it seems that some of them never go away. Frequently, divorce feels like the death of a spouse but with no body to bury, no finality – you just get to drag the corpse around on your back for the rest of your life.

But what is “insisting on being birthed” tonight is a further comment on being wool-blinded by my sadness and even bitterness over a broken marriage. You will remember that, as a result of my spiritual blindness, I’d swallowed a fat, juicy worm called “there is a way that seems right to a [wo]man, but the end thereof is the way of death”, i.e., an inappropriate relationship with someone who professed to be a believer but most assuredly was not. I’d been living with a guilty conscience for 2 years at this point and like most stupid fish, the more I struggled to pull the hook out myself, the deeper in went.

God used, quite literally, a Mack truck to dislodge the hook as I went from a healthy, active, single-momand mid-life grad student finishing her dissertation to someone who would always have some physical limitations and challenges, especially in the high stress work environment that research science demands. LL has asked if I am still safely behind the rather large blockade provided by my "Mack truck shearing" and my answer to you, my dear LL, is a resounding yes. I can even say that “it is good that I was afflicted that I might know your statues”.

And it was a good thing in that way for within two years I was in a new town, walking with a healing, faithful heart and back in youth ministry. My dream of a L’Abri-like home and family was intact again as I waited for God to send the right spouse (btw, I had decided he should be chosen by the elders as clearly my discernment in that area was sadly lacking). But God, as He frequently does, had other plans. There were lots of kids to mentor, but no spousal candidates; actually, there were no dating candidates either, but the teens and young adults who needed to be discipled kept coming, and after all, I had a daughter to raised. And so, science and kids – my own and other peoples', became my life.

About this time, a young friend began to blog in code. I watched carefully as he recorded the events of his daily life, giving people code names and I waited to see what moniker I would receive. “Halfmom” was born from his blog and I was thrilled to be given such a wonderful name by a teen (he likes his own mom too). During the 12 years since the shearing and restoration, I have continued to “halfmom” many. It’s not the dream I had originally, and sometimes I think perhaps that I should give up on the original dream completely and just be satisfied with this one. However, I must admit that my heart lstill longs for it and the companionship of a spouse.

It does seem that my spirit has been stirred up within me during the past year as I ask what God is getting ready to do in my life and in this regard, I have thoroughly enjoyed the exchange of mime comments from Every Square Inch on this subject. So I wait and contiue to ask the question, what has God really called me to do?.