Tracy’s view from the coffee cup

I’m not going to lie. This summer is hard for this mama. Last summer, we had some milestones in the maturity of our little daughter. She decided she was ready for drop-off camps. Inside, I panicked. Outside, I paid and confidently dropped off my precious cargo to ill-equipped young camp leaders who, in my best estimation, were going to forget to watch for my little dreamer and lose her somewhere outside where bears and snakes would eat her. Yes, I’m dramatic. This was gymnastics day camp……half days……..for about 5 days. She never even saw the sun or breathed the fresh air. She was inside all day with adults and constant supervision. And I picked her up each day around lunchtime. *insert dramatic sigh*

Well, this summer she’s interested in church camp. Let’s see, if mama is freaking out at simple half day gymnastics camp here in town where I drop off and pick up each day, somehow I have to get myself into the brain space of a week long sleepover camp in another town being watched by other moms! Inside my head there is much screaming. Well, my gut decision was to say a firm no way. But I breathed and took some time to think about it and try to be a normal mom instead of an over-protective helicopter mom. Ok, if I can be a chaperone I’ll figure out a way to make it possible. She’s six, so it’s still acceptable to be there with her. Dear God, what happened to my swaddling baby?!

So, I’ve now gone to buy sleeping bags and towels and snacks and bug spray and sunscreen. Did you know they make an extra long sleeping bag for us giants? They do! I own it now! I’ve even bought a single cup coffee maker super cheap so I can fill my caffeine tank whenever I need to right in my wild little room filled with screaming girls. There’s this chaotic place in my head that’s not sure exactly how to proceed. I’m the type of girl that is pretty much always put together. I wear makeup every day. I dry my hair every day. I drink copious amounts of coffee every day. Where will all this fit into a sleepover camp for kids? The perfectionist, overly controlling side of me is just about to cry, I have to admit. But I’m going to suck it up and allow these kids and other moms to see what only my husband and children see, the un-made up me. Let’s all take a moment to breathe for me.

In all seriousness, I’d like to be able to take the time to do all that I’m used to. But it’s no big deal. What I’m focused on really is that my little girl is growing up, whether I like it or not.

We parents spend all our breathing life moments filling our children to overflowing with character lessons and confidence to handle life as they grow. This is a normal evolution of a child and parent relationship. This is the first of oh so many steps she will take toward independence. And this is what I’ve worked for. I can’t hold her back. And I don’t want to, really. The struggle within is real.

I’m nervous that she’ll have trouble getting along with all the different personalities of kids that will be there. But she’ll figure it out. I’m nervous she won’t find something she likes to eat; she’s terribly picky. But she won’t starve. I’m nervous she’ll be swimming in a pool and struggle. But she’s a great swimmer and always careful. She’ll be fine.

I’m a praying mother. This is what I’ve worked toward. She’s not moving away. She’s just going to camp. She’s only six. It’s ok, mama. She’s budding wings to soar high in the sky when she’s grown. I can’t cut them before she has a chance to even learn to use them.

I’ve been hearing a strange type of speech lately from all kinds of places that has me concerned. We had a computer issue recently and had to bring the whole unit into the Apple Store. The technician that helped us with some pretty bizarre issues we were having kept saying these words, “I FEEL LIKE this is how we should proceed,” or, “I FEEL LIKE I’ve found the problem.” All I could wonder is what she knew, since she was basing my computer needs on her feelings.

Then, I’m regularly watching shows about home renovation but have noticed designers saying things like, “I FEEL LIKE this is the best use of this space.” Well, certainly feelings are there, but if I’m paying you for your design ability based on your education and experience, please be pulling from that knowledge instead of your feelings.

I’m concerned that it’s not the norm to hear, “I THINK this or that,” instead of, “I FEEL this or that.” I’m positive we are all still thinking somewhat. It’s just how we all operate and function in life. Even if you don’t think you’re thinking, you are. But what I’m more concerned about is that we are thinking more about what we feel than about what we know. If our feelings are taking the lead, we will be headed in all kinds of mixed up directions. Here’s another one that gets my goat, “Follow your heart.” Oh, man. Even the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and cannot be cured. I’ve followed my feelings before and had my heart broken. Wisdom simply MUST play a part in things.

What about our marriages? When our feelings don’t line up with our vows, we bail out or shut down. My previous blog articles have pretty often been about creating a peaceful and loving space for your marriage and family to thrive. It’s a decision. It’s most certainly NOT a feeling. Some of these decisions to love or forgive or answer softly have no choice but to come from a conscious decision to love, not a feeling. Usually those feelings tell me to be a seriously angry and manipulative person to get my way.

Feelings can activate when we see a good looking man who flatters us at work or even online. If we follow those feelings that allow us to be angry and unforgiving, that harmless flirtation that stimulates feelings can be easily justified and explored to a horribly dangerous end. Feelings can also tell us that there is no love left in our marriage. While there may be no FEELINGS of love, there is always love. It’s where we choose to share love that really matters. We can certainly show affection for our friends and family. We can show grace to the grocery checkout girl when she’s having a bad day. We can forgive siblings when they make decisions that hurt our feelings. But somehow we choose to cut off our spouses when the FEELING no longer burns in us. Feelings come and go regularly. No, feelings are certainly not the way to decide life’s most important twists and turns. Feelings will lead you to a broken life filled with empty hopes. Feelings are something God gave us. They’re not bad. They’re real, very real. But they do not have to control us. We can have feelings. But it’s when feelings have us that we are in trouble.

I have many female friends who have had children. It even applies to me when those children haven’t come from my body but through either marriage or adoption. Our bodies seem to forget their sexual value when children come along and demand our full attention. I’ve heard quite a few mothers express that they’ve lost the desire to physically please their husband. While I never will advocate forcing a physical relationship even within marriage, realizing that those feelings are normal and can be changed is a big deal. They’re just feelings. Hormones change later in life and for many that decreases libido and can cause a woman to lull into a comfortable intimacy-less life. Considering our spouses and their needs is a real issue that must be dealt with. Communication is the key. Certainly, physical intimacy is only one part of a marriage, but I do have to say that it’s an important part. There are enough limitations that can come against a married couple. Health issues alone can bring so many of them. Communicating with your spouse about what you are going through will bring you through miles of rough roads to a gloriously happy and satisfying marriage. No, physical intimacy is not required. But don’t forget about it.

When our children show us that they are unhappy with being told NO or receiving a punishment or maybe even that they simply have to get homework finished before playing with friends, their response is somewhat heart wrenching. This is especially difficult during the teen years when their words can be overly emotional and cut right to the heart of a parent. But, just because my feelings are that I’m sad that my child is upset, I cannot decide to follow my feelings and allow them to dictate decisions about what’s best for them. No, I must be a good parent and make decisions about what I know is best for them. At any age, they have no clue what is best. They don’t like vegetables, but they don’t understand much about what their bodies need to grow healthy and strong. So, we make them eat vegetables. They don’t understand why it’s important to stand by a commitment they’ve made, even when something more fun presents itself as an option to choose instead. But reliability and integrity speak volumes about the character of a person. If you’ve committed to something, follow it through. Just try to plan any event and you’ll see how few commit at all and how many who even did commit even show up. Lack of commitment is an epidemic in our society. If you want to change it, start first with yourself. We adults must lead the way.

Believe me when I say that I’m preaching at myself first. I’m a horribly shy introvert who looks for any and all reasons to say I won’t be attending pretty much everything. If I’ve made it to your event, I’ve overcome a lot to get myself there. The good thing is that I’ve married an extrovert who gets me as far out of my comfortable box than I ever thought possible. Add that to my social butterfly child and you’ve got a recipe for anxiety written in bold. But truthfully, I’m not called to be a hermit, as much as I’d like to be one. Life just doesn’t happen in the confines of my home’s walls. My FEELINGS will allow me to stay there and keep the world at an arm’s length. I’m good at it. God did not create us that way. He didn’t create me that way. And He didn’t create you that way.

I saw a post by Proverbs31.org that really inspired me to write this. Whether or not our feelings dictate the negative, we still have a choice how to operate.

“I’ve seen that each day I can make choices that move me toward or away from these fruits of character in my life:

Love or hate

Joy or sadness

Peace or worry

Patience or frustration

Kindness or rudeness

Goodness or meanness

Faithfulness or indifference

Gentleness or harshness

Self-control or self-indulgence.”

Have you ever seen pictures and articles of people celebrating 50 years of marriage and wondered why your marriage isn’t making it to year 5, much less year 50? I always read what they have to say for advice. I mean, I really want to know what the secret truly is to a long-lasting, love-filled marriage.

I’m pretty sure they all started the way ours did. They were love struck young people with thoughts of the perfect life together. They were probably just as filled with the physical attraction as we all were. It’s the way God intended it. There are quite a few passages in the Bible, even one whole book, dedicated to the physical attraction and satisfaction of our bodies in physical union with one another in the marriage bed. If even God talks about it, I’m thinking it’s something to enjoy and not to be seen as taboo or off limits.

But what happens during those 50 years? Many of us got married with hopes that it would always be like it started, butterflies and tingles, flirting and wooing one another. While there are certainly times that those feelings can rule over, life and its many surprises can throw us for an unprepared loop. When struggles for bearing children burden your thoughts, health issues with loved ones drop in unexpectedly, death of those close to you – or, God forbid, a child – financial issues, job losses, wayward children…….

Pick an issue. These things happen and more.

If we have unrealistic expectations of white picket fences and steady income without issues, we will be sorely disappointed and most definitely unprepared to deal with the changes necessary.

When my husband and I started dating, we had both been pretty damaged by previous marriages as well as countless bad dating relationships that brought into our relationship a plethora of defenses and old hurts. We dated for only 8 short months and were married. He had a teen daughter from his first marriage and I had no children but a mind full of ideas of proper parenting (insert extreme eye roll here). We did not explore each of our boundaries and expectations. Our first year of marriage was FILLED to overflowing with arguments and fighting. We didn’t even know how to argue in a healthy way. It was a mess and we are so thankful we made it through to the other side still together.

What I’m trying to say is that we WILL be one of those couples who will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary with so many memories of the time between “peaches and cream” and the celebratory dance 50 years later. We will be sliding into home plate laughing and kissing each other knowing everything we went through to get there.

When friends of mine are dating and thinking that they’ve found “the one,” I usually try to be as encouraging as possible and as real as I can be when asked directly about my experiences. One of my favorite pieces of advice, while somewhat in jest, is a pretty serious suggestion. “Have you had a fight with him yet?” If the answer is no, I suggest picking a fight. Again, it’s mostly in jest. But what I’m really saying is that you really need to know more. You’re still in the “peaches and cream” phase of a relationship. It’s what we hold onto when things get rough. I never lose sight of what that phase looks like so I can reproduce it time and again throughout our marriage. We should always be dating our spouse. The old timers call it wooing. (I’m an old timer, sort of.) Taking the time to clean up, put on some ‘stink pretty’ (as my great-grandmother would call perfume), put on your nice clothing, and go out on a date paying ALL attention to your spouse is oh so very important at the dating phase as it is 10 years in, 20 years in, 50 years in.

But when I’m saying to pick a fight before you decide to marry really is just my way of saying that there is more to know about a person than the initial dating phase can reveal. How will this person treat you when you disagree with them? How will they treat you when you have just given birth and are dealing with post partum depression? How will they treat you when you are struggling to overcome the loss of a parent? No, you cannot know fully how this will go in the beginning of your life together, but you CAN look closely at how they treat their family members or how other family members treat one another. These are all things you’ll have to get through together after the “peaches and cream” phase wears off.

I’m convinced that the reason God instructed us to wait to physically consummate a relationship until marriage is so that we have sex to get us through most of the first year growing pains. It’s never easy putting two adults under one roof and expecting them to get along. Just try it with a good friend being a roommate. Seriously! You’ll have to figure out how to adjust to where he throws his clothes at the end of the day, how he likes the fridge set up, what type of furniture he wants to equip the house with. If all we can do when we are dating is focus on the physical, we won’t have time to talk about those things that matter most. What are his financial goals in life? What are his career aspirations? How soon does he want children? Does he even want children? How many children does he want? Is he a spanking parent? Is he a parent that demands certain sports in his children’s lives? I mean, pick a topic and talk. Just talk. But please talk before you get married.

There are far too many marriages lost to unrealistic expectations. Let’s look at our spouses as partners in life and not the answer to all our problems. Well, most of the readers in this blog are already married. So, what now? You’re married. I’m married. You’ve had unrealistic expectations and they’ve failed you. Now what?

Well, I think the focus certainly needs to be the first thing to change. We have to realize that our husbands aren’t superheroes. I mean, maybe mine is, but not all can be. I’m kidding. He’s my superhero, but he’s certainly not perfect. Neither am I. I’m sharing most of these posts from a failed experiential platform and not one of perfection. We have to look closely at our spouses and see them for what they are. They are human beings. They have hopes and dreams. They have failures in life. They have successes in life. They need the other half of their own selves to be present and supportive to complete them. We jokingly call ourselves their “better halves,” but really have to understand that when we married we became half of a whole marriage unit. We are completely our own and completely a married unit. “They are no longer two, but one flesh.” We have to understand that we cannot just bail on our spouses. It is like we are bailing on our own selves. They need us to be emotionally available, even when they struggle to understand their own emotions.

Then we need to examine what issues are worthy of our concern and what should be left aside as less important. Not every battle needs to be fought. Here’s a real truth bomb: NOT EVERY BATTLE NEEDS TO BE WON. I know it’s great to be right. I know it seems like you need to tell him when he’s wrong and how your methods would be better. But he needs you to build him up more than he needs to be corrected. There are certainly some things that need to be dealt with. Unfaithfulness is a real life problem that cannot continue. Physical and mental abuse cannot be tolerated under any circumstance. But his habit of throwing his sweaty and muddy socks on the floor instead of in the laundry hamper, while intensely maddening and causes you to see him as a spoiled child, does not necessarily need to be addressed with the same………heated passion………that taking weekends away from the family to be with the guys might require. Pick your battles. Give your spouse a break from the wheel of torture he so lovingly calls nagging. Like I said, there are enough real life problems that need to be dealt with.

Choose to be a calm voice of encouragement to your husband. If he knows that when he comes home, he will see you screaming at the kids and slamming doors, yelling to him that the trash needs to be taken out because the science experiment of leftovers under the bed in the teen’s room finally was thrown away, and your exasperation overflows toward him as he walks in the door, he will not be all that excited to hurry home. There will be those time that chaos will happen, but the standard lifestyle in your home can be peaceful if you make an effort to create it.

I noticed my toddler daughter was speaking angrily at us more often a few years ago. I kept yelling at her to stop and telling her as loudly as possible how wrong she was to be acting out like she was. I didn’t notice that I had created that habit in her by yelling at her to begin with. How else was she going to behave except how she saw me behave? Well, of course this would all be explosive when my husband would walk in the door from work. He did not feel a sense of peace in our home. And neither did I. I expressed to him one night as we were headed to bed that I was so frustrated at how things were going and wanted to know what he would do to help. He took a slow, deep breath. He looked me in the eyes and held my hands tenderly. He then told me that my beloved toddler was mimicking my behavior and that unless I changed how I was talking to her, she wouldn’t change a thing. He had noticed the loss of peace in our home and was hoping it would be a personal introspection I would understand without him. But when I asked for help, he was willing to tell me the truth. He took a chance. It was dangerous. Had it been our first year of marriage, OH MAN! I would have lit into him for judging me and how he had no right to tell me anything.

Well, I have to admit that I did go to bed a little angry that night. I didn’t tell him that. But I was awake for a while letting it simmer in my mind. I finally came to the thought that he was right. Our kids really do reflect our behaviors, whether or not we really want to admit it. Well, I made the adjustment and it worked out. It didn’t happen instantaneously. But it did bring about peace in our home again. I had a choice to make and it had to be mine. I chose to let him speak into his other half as if it was his own heart. He took a risk in gently correcting me. It was one of those times he decided to fight for a battle that mattered. Our family mattered. Our marriage mattered. The peace in our home mattered.

We need to be real with ourselves and not only look for the problems in our spouses. It takes two to get married. It takes two to make a marriage work. It also takes two to destroy a marriage. I’d love to say that the only reason either of our marriages failed the first time was because we were married to awful people. But the reality of it is that no matter what I can say about my ex-husband, I had to look at myself first. I had to find out what I had created in our marriage that failed as well as what he had created. I just cannot expect my new marriage (that’s been 13 years so far!) to be successful if I’m unwilling to grow on my own. I’m looking even now regularly at how I can grow as a wife, as a mother, as a teacher, as a blogger, as a friend, and as a Christian.

In the beginning, God created mankind in His image. But when Eve was made of Adam’s rib, Adam said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”

Your husband is half of you. You are half of him. We have to learn to work together and meet that 50 year anniversary party with wisdom and joy to share with those around us. Our kids will be the ones to change the world. Let’s give them the tools to do it by showing them how we can make marriages that last the test of time without falling to pieces. It’s too common in this world to give up. I want to be stronger than that. I want to win at the battles that matter.

I’m not much on science. I’m homeschooling my 6-year-old and basically learning right along with her. Oh, I kind of remember learning such things as how photosynthesis works and how nose hairs keep gross junk from entering our bodies, but really I have no idea how things work. It just wasn’t something I was interested in while in school, so my tank of knowledge simply chose to leak it out. I still am not all that interested in it, but my little girl is so passionate about anything having to do with the ‘how’ behind any living thing that I have to really give it my all.

When my daughter was only 2, she wanted to know how grass ate food. Ok, I explained that the roots under the ground sucked up water and sent it through the plant. I’m a grown-up. I know stuff. Nope. This kid wanted to know why it was only water that they ate and why she never needed to feed the grass with meats and veggies like she ate. She wanted to know the very specific, very detailed way grass gets nutrients. So, I had to look up a word I knew but had no clue how to explain. I know photosynthesis is the process but nothing about how to explain it to a 2-year-old.

Let’s all take a moment to thank whomever it was that put all this information on line for people like me to access it in times like this. She loved it. We used a cut piece of celery in colored water to watch the process work through the ‘veins’ of the celery. We then examined pretty much every leaf and every tree in our subdivision to discover all the different types of little ‘veins’ in the different types of leaves. She’s just that kid. In order for her to learn, she has to understand every little ‘why’ and ‘how’ involved.

There’s another science-y piece of information that I’ve learned that I’d like to share with you. I learned this one on my own. This nugget was found in a book written by Annette Capps called Quantum Faith. It’s all about the science behind sound.

Stick with me. I promise I’m not just going to write about a science lesson here.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes synopsis from my vantage point. Everything, and I really mean everything, can be broken down to its smallest structure to atoms. Everything. Atoms are the basic building blocks of everything. Each atom is made of subatomic particles. It is made up of energy from these particles, protons, neutrons, electrons, surrounding a nucleus. Ok. Great. What?

So, when an atom is formed or created, it has no scientific purpose yet. It is just waiting in limbo, so to speak. Could it be a freckle? Could it be a leaf? Could it be hair? What could it be? It has no purpose.

Until…….

Until it hears sound. An atom has no structural purpose upon creation until it hears a vibration of sound to tell it what to become. Seriously! Have you ever been one of those pregnant moms who plays music for her forming baby? Have you used calming nature sounds to relax you? What about positive affirmation recordings in therapy or counseling? Is it any wonder that we are so deeply affected by the music we choose to listen to? Teens in the throws of wild and unleashed hormones and emotions are moved by music and poetry in an attempt to find their way. Churches are polarized to the point of hiring and firing music leadership every few years because music really does affect us that deeply.

Well, here’s what I’ve been ruminating about recently. How many of us wives have ever said this to our husbands, “Ugh! You ALWAYS do this!,” or, “I don’t know why I even try. It’s ALWAYS going to be like this,” and, “What is WRONG with you?” (My emphasis added for a window into my own type of exasperated speech patterns.)

We have the power within our own hearts, minds, and words to change things around us by simply using the right words. There is so much to be said for encouraging people, for using kind words even in the heat of disagreement. It is truly tough to reign in my emotions when I’m mad and keep myself from saying horrible things, even to those I love most dearly. I’m a hothead with a hot mouth. It’s my biggest struggle.

But what if we chose to apply this idea of using the creative power of our words to change our situation? What if, instead of saying, “What is WRONG with you?,” we chose to say something that can change things. I’m not trying to feed words to you. But let’s try this together. “This husband of mine is destined for greatness!” Not only will you shock the pants off him, but you then have shaken the atomic foundation of things to begin to make changes. “My husband has the heart and mind of a leader and I just know he will use this wisdom and knowledge to lead us/them properly.”

Instead of, “You ALWAYS do this,” maybe the idea could be, “I see this is where we’ve come again and we know the path. What do you think about XYZ idea that we haven’t tried before?” You’ve given him another idea to interrupt the existing patterns and have given birth to a new set of atoms with a new destination. Don’t choose the old ones. They’re exhausted. Get off the dead horse. Choose to give life to new things. Don’t forget to use your words to tell your spouse when they look good or when they do something nice, even when it’s a typical household chore. Always say thank you. Always say please. Not only are you appreciating your spouse, but you’re setting a precedent in the hearts and minds of your children. Never take for granted the actions of your loved ones.

Our children need this as well. “You are such a bright child and I’m excited to see what your future holds!” This could be after a failed test score that your child is devastated or frustrated to receive. “You will be one of the best people at judging character when you’re older because of all the life experiences you’ve already encountered.” This is in the face of yet another bad relationship experience with friends/dating/jobs. Our kids need to hear that there is another path to choose. They need to understand that they are not limited to the failures they’ve experienced thus far.

Our words have the power to build up our marriages and families or tear them completely apart. My husband was told growing up by his father that nobody wants to hear anything he has to say. So, to this day he struggles with finding importance in his own self. How many of us were told we were fat and now deal with eating disorders? Or that our appearance was the most important part of our lives and now struggle with confidence? Words shape the way we think. They create the direction of the atoms that filter our thoughts and our actions.

If you choose to look into the biblical application of this, look at the power of Creation. Did God push a button and create light? No, He used His words. “Let there be light.” And there was light. When Joshua was told by God to march around the city of Jericho seven times and then use the instruments and shouts to cause the stone protective walls to fall, did God send battering rams to push the walls down? Nope. He used the power of sound to take the victory. There is even mention of the “music of the planets” in the Bible. I wonder what application that has imbedded in its meaning. It’s no wonder we have such dissent in our places of worship when it comes to music. “Why don’t they play more hymns? Why do we have to use those noisy electric guitars? Why can’t we play songs we hear on Christian radio? Why can’t we just skip the music and show up for the message?” Oh, the enemy sure knows where to cause a break in our faith, doesn’t he? He knows there’s power in our praise and the sounds we create.

But, I digress.

We can take this all the way to healing and addiction and whatever else can be applied. But she already wrote the book. You really should read it.

Quantum Faith by Annette Capps

I have no biological children of my own. It was a choice I made many years ago on my own that I now regret, but things happened the way they happened. And now, I’m overly blessed with a family that is so filled with love that I defy anyone to prove to me how it isn’t as perfect as if I had delivered each child out of my own body. It was a long and windy road getting here, though. That’s another one of those things I can see in retrospect in a few different lights.

There have been some mighty disappointments and hurts that we’re meant to take me down to a place I couldn’t have recovered from. Amazingly, if I hadn’t endured them and hadn’t risen from those crusty ashes of defeat, I wouldn’t be in a place I’m in now to appreciate fully what I am so very blessed to live out.

I can look back and see the damage and destruction, or I can look back and see all that the destruction built in me. That’s what baggage is – perspective. We all come into a relationship with some kind of baggage. If you’re over 15 years old, you’ve most definitely got baggage. Welcome to life. The rest of our lives are all about what we decide to do with that baggage. And it’s up to no one but YOU. No one can magically take away the hurts, the memories, the thought life that’s left that can slip in at any time. I know I see memes all the time about how this new relationship has “healed all my hurts” or “put all my broken pieces back together again.” While my faith knows that only God can do that (and He will), we each individually still have a choice how to walk that out.

Will we be constantly reminded of the abandonment of a spouse that decided to leave the first marriage, causing us to live in fear with a new relationship? Will we assume all men are abusers and never give another the chance to prove that wrong? Will we choose to dress overly provocatively because of a spouse that cheated, demeaning our own selves?

Here’s the biggest one:

WILL WE TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO LIVE IN FEAR AND ANGER BECAUSE OF OUR EXPERIENCES?

They pick up on every nuance we think we’ve got hidden from their little impressionable hearts. Every snarky, snide remark we think they either don’t hear or don’t understand is embedded in their minds and hearts to be pulled out later, when a relationship pushes a button and triggers that memory of how you handled it. We think we are creating strong young people by filling them with hardened comments and over-emotional reactions. But what we really do by operating in this way is create in our precious children a pre-hurt, defensive outlook on relationships, dooming them to repeat our mistakes. Yep, it’s a huge responsibility. Are we mothers going to show them how to handle life in anger and retaliation or with grace and peace? I’ve fallen more times than I’ve risen, but I keep trying.

So, what happens when we’ve found that new relationship? We’ve brought our stinky baggage to merge with their stinky baggage and now we’ve got all this new family to handle with our scented garbage bags attempting to cover our hurts.

I’ve been married before. It was a mess. My current husband was married before and has a beautiful daughter who was 13 when we got married. We now have an adopted daughter who was unplanned in our lives. His ex-wife was actively part of his daughter’s life, sharing 50/50 custody here in the same town where we live. My circumstances may be different than yours, but I’m just sharing that the messy merge can still be a blessed merge. Stick with me through this.

I think there’s a place in any person that wonders if they’ll ever be the spouse left in the dust through infidelity. I’m no Wonder Woman. I was scared stiff when we first got married that the ex-spouse was so close that he would decide to reunite with her and leave me broken yet again. I had thoughts of isolating him and their child so she couldn’t be a temptation. She works for him in his small business, so of course I had thoughts of forcing him to fire her so they wouldn’t have contact outside of their daughter. I had thoughts of his only contact with her in relation to their child to be done through me so I could control the communication thus protecting my marriage. (insert eye roll here)

Yes, like I said, I’m no Wonder Woman. Those thoughts were debilitating to me in the beginning of our marriage. But I had a very serious choice to make and a HUGE revelation to see. If he was to decide she was the one for him, my moves to secure him would in no way stop it. At some point, he will figure out for himself what he wants, and my INSECURE actions will most likely push him there right out of my arms, if not into hers then into someone else’s who isn’t so insecure.

And guess who else is watching this newly added fixture into the family? His daughter is watching my every move and my every emotional outburst. An impressionable teen girl is watching how I handle a very common issue in our society today, blended families. I hope she won’t have to ever deal with it, but she may. She’s also watching how I SAY I operate in faith but DO everything out of fear. Guess who will be to blame if I get my way and force my husband to sever the civil communication between a teen girl’s parents. That’s right, me. It will be my fault and my reputation will be sealed as a horrible step parent who caused strife in her family.

No, thank you. Disney already portrays all step mothers as evil. I don’t need to prove them accurate.

What do I want my children to understand? I want them to be able, when faced with relationship struggles that will inevitably come their way, to look back at the way their step mother chose to suck up her rattled emotions and insecurities and do what was honorable, what was right, and what was even more generous than expected.

What do I want my husband to understand? I want him to see me as selfless and giving, flexible and strong, a woman who deserves his love and his respect. I DON’T want him to see a defensive, selfish, jealous woman who strategically and spitefully tears apart his peaceful world. I want him to see me searching for solutions to struggles and to see me being a peacemaker, not a manipulating female bent on destruction. If he didn’t already have a peaceful split with his ex, I want to do everything I can to find a way to instill peace while protecting my new little family.

Does that mean that I allow his ex spouse to demand unreasonably or walk over me or our family? Absolutely not! Do I ever allow her to manipulate him or our children? Never. But do I need to retaliate or instigate problems? Never.

It’s an incredibly difficult walk, one you CHOSE to walk when you married into a blended family. You can CHOOSE to stomp your feet and get your way, but at what cost? Will you be willing to be right at the cost of losing him and your family? We women are skilled at finding ways to get people to do what we want. I’ll say it again. WE MUST WAKE UP EVERY DAY AND CHOOSE TO USE OUR POWERS FOR GOOD AND NOT EVIL. It’s up to you.

Strength is not meanness. Strength is not defensive. Gentleness is not weakness. Set boundaries and stand firmly by them in kindness and love.