As a teacher, I have heard these phrases a lot.
“Oh, they come from a broken home.”
“Children from broken homes don’t perform as well on standardized tests than those from intact families.”
“Broken homes are a predictor of academic success.”
So, when I became a single parent of 2 little ones, these phrases continually bounced around in my head. And soon the “broken home” phrase morphed into “broken kids” in my mind which in turn morphed in to the thought “I am not enough.”
My dad was raised in a single parent home. Every socioeconomic and traditional home structure was stacked against him. I wonder if my Granny ever felt like she wasn’t enough? No one would have ever told her that, because in her almost saint like status, she filled her role as mother completely.
However, I’m not Reba. My persistent thought was I am not enough for my kids. As a single parent, I could physically, emotionally, spiritually, never be enough for them. Yeah, I felt broken.
Then, I started to think… even if I were married, I’d never be enough for them. They need other people in their life. They need their grandparents. They need my close friends. They need my college mentors. They need their children’s pastor. They need coaches. They need their friends’ moms and dads. I couldn’t do this journey alone. The reality was, it had nothing to do with my “broken home” but everything to do with I will never be enough, God didn’t expect “enough” from me, he expects what I have to give.
I determined to be the best mom to them I could be. I went back to school and got my master’s degree. My motivation wasn’t as much the pay raise as it was the desire to show my kids that my life goals are still in place. I’m not broken. I led a book club and Bible studies, again to show them that ministry didn’t stop because I’m not broken. We took vacations and I bought a house and we lived life because we aren’t broken.
Fast forward to today… I’m remarried to the best man I could imagine. He loves my kids like they’re his own and I love his like they’re mine. However, people still put us in the category of a “broken home”.
Yet we are not broken, we are blended. While the world labels us broken, we see ourselves as blended. A mix of unique personalities and perspectives that creates a design that only God could orchestrate.
We co-parent at a distance. We struggle daily with the “are we doing enough for them?” The “them” who live with us daily and the “them” who do not. We wrestle the question of how do we continue going forward in the ministry God has called us to because our family lives in 2 states and some days it feels so very broken.
We wrestle the darkness that wants to envelop them. We wrestle the culture that wants to enslave them. We wrestle a world that wants them broken.
We wrestle the “enough”. We wrestle the reflections in the mirror and the voices in our heads that call every decision into question. The tension of truth is always tugging at us.
Truth is we made the best decisions for our kids. Truth is God has still called us and has a place for us to serve. Truth is God loves our kids more than we do and is pursuing them daily. Truth is… most parents wrestles these same thoughts.
We are not broken because God has healed us.
Maybe you didn’t face divorce or the death of a spouse, maybe there are other life circumstances that made you feel like if people could really see in your home, they’d see it was broken. Take heart friend, what the enemy meant to break, God will use for your good if you allow him to take what you have and make it “enough”.
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:20
