My Son...

Happy Birthday, Ry!

I cannot believe you turned 18 today! Where has the time gone? When you first came into my life, you were a rambunctious six-year-old who bore an uncanny resemblance to the video game character, Yoshi! Well, at least by the walk!

We have gone through so many changes over the years-- school, puberty, girls (yikes!), our "dates" so you can learn how to treat a young lady, driving, and so much more. I can honestly say that you are the type of child parents dream of having. You're smart as heck, funny, thoughtful, hardworking, respectful, and kind. You are growing into quite a young leader who is destined to do great things in this life. You, Young Man, are success just waiting to happen, and Dad and I are so proud of you!

Although you were not born from my body, Ryan, you were truly born in my heart. I hate the label of "step"son. There is no "step" or lessening of my love for you. You are my SON, plain and simple.

So, have a wondrously blessed birthday, knowing that Dad and I love you, pray for you, and have your back forever!

All my love,
Mom

Honor Your Father and Mother

Like I said earlier, I had to defriend someone from my FaceBook account because she was being disrespectful to her mama.

Now, the Lord knows that I have not made the best decisions all the time when it comes to dealing with my own mother, but despite how angry she has ever made me-- and she has done so A LOT!!!-- I have never, never, never, EVER called her out of her name or in any way threatened her.

This child (teenager, going to 12th grade) is the daughter of a friend of mine. At first I thought it was cute when I received her friend request. But that changed QUICKLY! See, my friend and her daughter are having a hard time relating right now for a number of reasons. There seems to be so much more to the story that I am not privy to, but that is their business and I respect that. Anyway, I have been noticing the daughter writing things in her status that are, in my opinion, extremely disrespectful towards her mother. I know she intentionally writes those things to hurt her mom since her mother can see everything she writes. I wrote her a private message letting her know that, although I do not know what all is going on between them, life is so short and is not at all promised to us. I asked her, essentially, to ask herself this: If your mother died today, would you be forever okay with the way things are between you? If your answer is yes, then there is really nothing else I can say other than to just keep it moving. But if the answer is no,then you need to make sure that you take the necessary steps on your end to start making it right today. Once we are gone, it will be too late the say the things we should have said or to take back the things we knew we should not have said. I left it there and went about about my business.

The child did not respond to my message and, in fact, continued to post disrespectful status messages toward her mother. I guess, in her reckless youth, she made the decision she felt she needed to.

The last straw for me, though, was this final exchange (paraphrased): (Warning: foul language)

(apparently, the mother had written and told the child she loved her)

Friend's daughter's status message: Seriously, just leave me the f*** alone!
Daughter's friend #1: What's going on? Whose ass do I need to kick?
Daughter's friend #2: So, your (sic) gonna kick her mother's ass? LMAO!
Friend's daughter: LMAO!!!

Okay! I was HOT I tell you! I had reached the end of my rope with this little girl! The level of disrespect was just too much! So rather than beating her with a red hot poker or saying what was REALLY on my mind, I just deleted her from my friends list so I'd never have to see her disrespectful posts again. I understand that it does, indeed, take a village to raise a child, but I also understand that not everyone in the village has permission to beat the child's butt.

It does seem, though, that somewhere along the way the message of honoring your father and mother (Ephesians 6:2-3) got missed. I'm just saying...

Let it go

My soul is really vexed today. Yeah, I said it-- vexed!

I recently had to de-friend a person from my Facebook friends list. I tried to talk to her and share experiences I have had, but she continued to update her status with hateful, disrespectful things about her mama. (I'll post about that later.)

Now, if you know me at all, then you know that my relationship with my own mother has, over the years, been described as tumultuous. I mean, I thought I could move thousands of miles away and finally be free of the drama and stress I was constantly plagued with. I even went to counseling to try to figure out why someone who was supposed to love me so much put me through so much. And you know what? Counseling gave me some insight, but never really solved my problem. My problem was not solved until I had an epiphany one day: I had to fix myself before I could deal with problems in my relationships.

I literally spent YEARS and lots of money trying to solve my family problems the way *I* had imagined they should be solved. The bottom line is that MY way of solving problems with people was by finding ways to CHANGE those people into what I thought they should be. I wanted them to act the way I thought they should act, and I wanted them to do the things I thought they should do.

You see, I didn't realize it at first, but what I really wanted was CONTROL.

Whenever someone in my family did something to step outside of that little box I had so neatly organized, I was disappointed. They disappointed me. They betrayed me. I wasn't in control.

Yes, it hurt me deeply when someone so dear to me lied on me (which was A LOT!!), but that is a problem THAT PERSON has to solve within themselves. I knew I did not say or do those things, so why was I worried so much about it? I finally learned to just LET IT GO.

When they lied on me, so what! Let. it. go.
When they said that I think I'm better than everyone else, I knew I didn't feel that way-- they did. Let. it. go.
When they said things about my husband or my children, I realized that anyone truly important in their lives knew that stuff was unfair and untrue. So, I grit my teeth very hard and let. it. go.

At the end of our lives, it will no longer be important to us whether or not someone said all the right things or did all the right things to us. We just want to be able to know that we loved and were loved. We want to know that in the brief moment of time and space we were allowed to be here, we made a difference. We mattered.

Isn't that all that really matters?

People, please learn to just let the foolishness of this world go or it will consume you. Don't be like I was for so long. As my friend, Monnie, says and I have since adopted, "Be better than me."

So now I say it to you. Don't be like me. Be so much better than me.

One spoiled dog!

Could someone please explain to me why my dog, Chopper, will not drink his water without ice cubes floating in it? Seriously, he is a DOG! Whenever I go to the fridge to get ice for my cup or for the kiddos, he will look at me like I'm the crazy one and bark until he gets a couple of cubes in his water, too.

Oh, now don't get me wrong. To be 10-12 pounds, he puts up a good front barking and running up on visitors like he's going to actually do something. Then he goes to the water bowl to check on his ice.

Yeah, whatever!

Spoiled I tell you!