Not knowing the solution.....

Just read an article I saw posted on FB This is my thoughts in regards to that powerful article.
Well, I don't know the answers.
Marc and I have been involved w/ DHHS on both side.  Marc growing up in the system and us fostering/adopting ourselves.  I wish I knew the solution.  It needs major revamping.  Getting involved with Greater Bangor Hub - Safe Families for Children feels like a way to help some of these families stay together that truly just need the support and love- and not to always demonize families that are struggling.  At the same time, I'm the mom of an adoptive son.  He NEEDED to be removed.  Zach was born with 5 narcotics un-prescribed in his "mother's" system, that's on top of the prescribed methodone. Nevermind the marijuana and nicotine in her system.  And while Fetal Alcohol was never established, let's face it- she's wasn't losin' sleep over takin' a drink.  So, yeah, sometimes I'm on my knees thankful for DHHS involvement saving his life- on more then one occasion I've literally caught myself crying of what his life would be, had he slipped through the cracks; and frankly, I don't think he'd have one. I feel quite certain, Zach's little life would've tragically shown up in the obituary.  I've heard my son scream cries an infant shouldn't cry. I've held the small body of a baby withdrawing as it tremored and couldn't hold down his meal.  I've sat in the NICU for hours, days and over a month..haunted by the echo of others babies wails that sounded so much like my little boy's cry.  My son needed someone to care, someone to rescue him. DHHS did.  I worked with wonderful people, I saw their hearts and their desire to make the situation right.  I've had the love and support of those caseworkers and biological family- all working to do what was best for Zachary.
And yet...
I have one vivid memory when I was doing admin work (eons ago) at a Mental Health facility downtown Bangor.  There had been a poor mom coming in with her two kids for quite some time, she was trying! Maybe it wouldn't be your definition of trying or best, but for her, it was everything she had in her. Her financial situation was challenging and frankly, she did struggle mentally as well (I don't recall any problems with substance abuse). But she loved her kids and she tried.  She was involved with the programs at the facility and worked closely with case management and counselors.  I remember the caseworker involved coming up to me heartbroken that DHHS was coming to our work to remove the kids and mom was on her way.  I can say this is NOT what the folks I worked with wanted at all, they very much tried to get DHHS not to make this decision and tried to put in place a plan for this family to stay together.  I can't say I was privy to all the details, but I remember that poor meek mom coming in, devastated.  And I have this memory of the coldness of the DHHS worker..I'll never forget it.  She sat there with her colleague in the lobby while the kids were getting gathered, discussing "going out later that night" and her plans for the evening, as mom sat there sobbing.  She looked over at mom once and told her she should pull herself together and not make a scene because that will just make it worst on her kids.  I was young at the time and I remember just walking away from my desk.  I was floored and dismayed at what I seeing and its stuck with me all these years later.
And stories only Marc has shared with me, his up and down roller coaster story.  I've looked at some DHHS case in disgust and then on the other side, I've hugged the worker and saw how hard she loved and tried.  I've worked with a mom and saw the love and struggles and see the need at times for family and other times for the need to find a different solution for the child.

NO, this is not easy stuff. It wasn't easy then, now or even in the future to get involved.  But not "not getting involved" seems impossible.  It's too needed.  There are families that simply need help and tearing them apart will do nothing to save that child.  There is a child right now out there needing someone to tear them from their hell.  There is a small baby laying in a NICU right now, screaming and I can attest, there is no parent there to hold him through it despite their being the reason that child is suffering.  And there are too many parents out there now, terrified to lose their children because the real power the State has.

I didn't respond with solutions (helpful, I know).  I just responded with thoughts, I just don't know.  And all I can think of is this boy's face and how he is worth everything!

Time, a precious gift. And yet..........

I am still unsure of blogging. Not that I feel like I’m already slacking in committing, but more- what it “is” or how I’ll go about doing it properly.  Silly, I know.  However, I’ve thought of it a lot since my initial post, thinking of things such as, “I’ll do it once a week” or “Maybe I’ll try to be topical”.  It started to feel rehearsed a bit in my heart, and that’s never quite how I’ve ever written.  So, I’ll just do what I’ve always done…wait til something eats at me a bit and let the banging on keys commence.  Honestly, when something starts to eat at me, it usually starts banging in my head for awhile first!

And today, I’ve been chewing on a lot, mostly me.  Today was not the best version of the me I like very much.  Oh, don’t worry I’m not about to dive in to any sort of rhetoric of the poor me’s, help me’s, or depressed me, or the only if it was this way me’s.  And please, no…I don’t need to love myself more, I love myself plenty.  If I hear one more person or post or antidote about loving oneself more…never mind, I don’t wanna venture down that street tonight, that’s not what I’m writing about here.

I’m writing about time.  Time, oh wasted time, and the version of myself that needs a kick.  I did soooooo little today and not in a good way.  In a way, I find myself doing too much of the nothing.  Ok, I did plenty of the busy stuff.  I cleaned (not scrubbed spotless) but hey, it’s pretty clean enough.  I did some laundry, dishes and vacuumed all the floors.  I fed, clothes, changed diapers, potty trained, played and played and played.  So, it was a busy-ish day, but yet I did soooooo little today.  At times I watched too much tv and barely moved.  I didn’t get dressed today or shower (yes, I’m admitting this), but I did brush my teeth twice.  (I may have forgotten to put on deodorant, but no one complained and I truly can’t remember). I could ask for the typical response and endlessly clichés of “mother’s work is never done” or “Hey, its okay to have an off day. You deserve it.”  But that doesn’t help me, it just excuses me and what I don’t need is any of that anymore, I provided myself with lots of that last year.  Again, I’m not going down that road tonight either. Last year was hell, frankly.  And that’ll be another blog about being new to the stay at home mommy world, going through the actual terrible two’s and having a very sick preemie baby.  YEAH, that’s a freakin book.  No, tonight is about time.

I’ve been burdened a lot lately about my use of time.  I think it really is a case of not know what the heck to do with myself.  Last year was hard, I had to get through it and now I am.  I worked pretty steadily part time for a bout a year now and that helped me.  I need to work some, it’s just in me.  So staying at home has a trillion blessings, but none of the actual day to day stuff comes very easily to me.  I am a social person, I am a working person, I am a hyper person.  Staying at home, for someone like me and raising little ones, it’s darn hard.  I go nuts sometimes and feel isolated.  I bore easily and become bitter and even snappy to angry.  I run out of busy work and then fall into terrible routines of “making time pass”, tv being the largest culprit.  I’m committed to staying home until the boys are school age, because in the thick of me struggling are the greatest moments my heart has ever experienced.  Being my boys teacher in every respect, being there for all the precious moments, being the one that holds them, kisses them, reads to them, has silly games with them, no amount of bad me moments can steal that joy from me.  The hard months of making ends meet, the living in a small home, driving an old car, making budget wise decision is worth it.  And even the worst version of the lazy days of me doing nothing doesn’t send me down a road of “I need to get out of this house, like NOW!.”  No, it does something else to me.  It re-commits me to my choices and how to make it work.  God pounds on my heart on days like today.  Oh I hear him, I may ignore him, but yeah, I hear him.

“So, you’re on your couch, huh?  Nice, so…..yeah, 3 episodes of Finding Bigfoot, and did you happen to read any of my word today?”

“Water, soap, scrubbing…..ok, how about just a change of cloth?”

Oh and the worst and I don’t want to admit it, but I will, “So, that’s not discipline, that’s just anger.  How about YOU go take a time out?”

Yep, time Jen, speaking of God’s precious gifts. Time.  There’s not enough time in a day, a week or a month, right? That’s what we all say.  I dare say there is.  There’s plenty of time to do what needs to be done.  There’s time for raising of children, work and there’s time for you.  There’s time to find yourself again and not dive down any silly rabbit holes of nothing and excuses.  There’s time for finding the art and joy in writing, drawing and simply doing something in the nothing; like reading, walking and exploring His world.  I recently lost someone so close to me and what he was definitely is eating at my heart.  My grandfather was not a waster of time.  He excelled at using his time wisely and in that he created such beauty.  In me lays the same gifts of creating beauty, what an ugly thing I do to his legacy when I waste what he has taught me away and watch that terrible box.

So, what can my blog be? Well, lots of things for sure. So, what about some accountability?  What about keeping me on my toes about how I want to change my time to not whining about “ohhh…I did it again!”

I wrote the following two poems a few years ago and reading them just slammed me.  I’m still struggling with the same struggles! 

Yeah, no excuses, Jen; God says, “Move”. So I will move. (Besides, really, you smell a bit and really don’t be that person.)

The Moment

Movements that make small waves

This is how it marches through

You speak a word

You take a step

You go somewhere

You do something

This is a day,

            Movements

They all are so small, every second; it’s just a stroke of my hand this way or that way

It’s the billionth second that I cocked my head to the side and looked up

It the was the billionth and half second I opened my month to say something

There are endless moments of literal stillness and staring nowhere particular

And the day ends

I could be describing trivial-ness

Monotonous and ordinary, small this and small that, that’s life

            It’s how it marches

I could be describing life as dull and useless, because of all the smallness and naming every movement after a second of existence

But every second does have a name

There was the second you said you loved me

There was that breath in and he said “I do”, and I breathed out again

There was the movement of me walking into the hospital room and seeing my small son for the first time.

            Holding his tiny, trembling body

There are the thousands of touches between me and the world and that made me feel love

Millions of milliseconds of a tear falling because at that precious moment I felt everything I could possible feel in a single instant of life

There was the gesture two years ago

            It was maybe the millionth second of my life; I was bowed on my floor

and cried out,

“Forgive me!”

And in that moment, my life changed its course forever.

Movements can seem small, but the small step on any particular day in your life could be a memory you’ll live with for eternity.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Despite Myself

It’s been so quiet lately

And I’ve cleaned up again

Not enough, but as much as I’m gonna today

            Well, maybe I’ll do the floor

                        They’re always nasty

My TV been running too much

            I’ve been trying to turn it off, and turn the music on

I’ve been trying lately

Trying to find greatness in a house I’ve spent too much time in lately

I’ve been looking for gratefulness, because there are days I’ve run empty and I’m digging through my purse looking for two coins to make through the week

Being human can be such a dumb thing sometimes

Everything meaningful has been said, and there’s so much realness in the cliché,

            I want to write them, but they’ve been said a thousand times

Life is so precious, how dare I be bored

Our senses could explode, how do I stare at yet another toilet paper commercial

God is so grand; creation is so beyond comprehension, taken out of context it can breed disbelief

Whatever makes the day pass, whatever makes easy easier

Whatever makes us so happy, sin isn’t sin, if it pleasing . . .  right? If its feels good, do it

Funny though, the moment we’re pleased, the moment the pleasure has past, we get busy sweeping the self contempt and loathing under the carpet

Humans are master justificators, that’s my word.  I just made it up

I find it hard in these little rants of mine to find the reason why God loves us.

I find it hard to fathom, why he gave us beauty or forgiveness or free will

I spend so much time wasting around, wasting time, wasting life

I spend a lot of energy on my excuses, and I watch too much TV

Really I spend too much time being hypocritical and judgmental

All the while serving a God I truly love

I spend a lot of time wondering why my life isn’t better, huh…it really quite despicable.  Not my life, but my wasted time.

I did clean my house today, and I hear my little boy.

            He just woke up from a nap.

He’s about to make all sorts of messes and do all sorts of things that will frustrate me,

            And yet, he’s about to bring me utter joy.

And this is why God loves.

Someday is FINALLY today!

When I was in second grade, I was a star! A writing star!  That’s what I wanted to be. I liked stories and writing them and telling them.  I even had my own series, ‘Leo the Lion’.  I don’t recall the stories, I just remember the title and the pride I had in my teacher’s exclamations of, “Someday, you are going to be a writer!”

Well, life happens.  Life happened to me.  And I did not follow the dream, follow my heart or follow the gifts that God gave me.  In fact, for many years I followed a lot of wrong things and certainly didn’t entertain the idea of God or that he had gifted me with much.  I had my own thoughts of my own righteousness and intelligence and my own will of what roads I would follow.

I woke up one day ( or maybe extremely early morning) and I realized that self-righteous intelligence of ME and what I knew and how I’d think and be and the grandiose me, didn’t lead me far.  I had drunken my way through the majority of my teen and adult life and had a mediocre life, a damaged marriage and a foolish mind and body. 

So, I stopped listening to myself, because myself was a 31 year old idiot that hadn’t bother to learn much despite what she spewed out at everyone.  I stopped and started to listen to someone else.  I listened to God.  I wanted to hate Him; I wanted what He had to say not to be true, I wanted His book and words to be lies.  I was ready to be defensive, I was ready to justify myself, and I was ready for a fight.  I was ready to win!

None of that happened.  Instead, I was stripped bear and left with the nothingness of me and the reality of His word and His truth.  And wanting Him to be a lie and the truth of Him are to me, undeniable- wanting something to be true and it actually being true are not the same thing at all!  When your heart is finally broken free and you can finally listen and learn and take the time.  It’s hard to say no when God simply says, “Follow me.”  And I did.

So here I am 5 years later, a believer.  And yes, I even believe God has given me gifts- Fabulous.  What have I done with said gifts?  Well, nothing. Nada. Zip. ZERO!

In second grade, I beamed at my stories.  I wanted to be a writer.  Nearly 36 years old and I am not a writer.  So, where to start?  I’ll be honest, blogging has not appealed to me.  I have felt like, well…everyone blogs!  I read many of my friend’s blogs and enjoy them, but I thought, I can’t do this.  I can’t commit to it, everyone does it and frankly, I am scared.  I am scared because I am decades removed from school, so the learning I once was instilled with is g-o-n-e. They’ll see my grammar skills are sub par! They’ll see that while I know all about there, their and they’re…sometimes I type too fast and still screw up.  They’ll see my sentence structures are confusing and completely not correct.  And really I am scared that- it will be hated, laughed at, ridiculed and worst! Not read at all.  That this gift I believe I have is no gift at all.  That I have nothing to say worth reading and what I want to reflect is nothing but banging on keyboards of empty words for just me and even God will say, “Yeah…..that’s not the gift I was giving out when I made you……”

But deep inside, I know this isn’t true and I am prideful.  I am prideful that if I write I might write things some might not like, so what?  I am prideful, it might not always be good, so what?  I am prideful, I need to be brilliant and can only write and publish, when it’s the best part of me I’ve ever produced.  Well, Jen, you are 36 years old and you are not a writer, so how’s that plan working out of you?

I want to feel God’s gift pouring from me and beam again that I am trying! I want to feel like that second grader again and all the years that are lost of the self righteous and prideful me are long ago and I started somewhere. So ok, a blog! Why not?  It’s a start and who knows where it will go and what God can possibly turn it into.

So here’s my blog!  I have no idea what I’ll write about or my style or form!  So I can’t do a pretty intro.  If you know me, you know I am hyper and all over the place and LOUD and spastic and talk a lot.  You know I am random and lose focus and say one thing one time another thing another time and at times … you are just trying to keep up with me!  So, I guess that will be my blog! Me being exactly as God created me.  I do hope you enjoy it, that in some way it blesses you, entertains you, shares me with you and on some level it helps you as Christ has helped me.

So, I am going to be brave today! I am going to lay it out.  And the fears of pride, or sucking, or that my writing, poetry, essays forms, my rants and ravings will not be well organizing or good or even too revealing of me and who I am, who I’ve been and how my mind works – are casted down and here I am finally using the gift that God has given me!

And where it all started, this- the original gift- my salvation.  I wrote a poem around the same time and it still speaks volumes to me on what God did to me that day.  So, here I go, doing something, anything, being brave, hitting the button……

Empty Shells

I was groaning

And making small useless noises

I was screaming and my voice echoed everywhere

I was full, completed

I was the I AM of my world

I opened my mouth and the little words came out every where

I’d trip and stumbled over my ego

I left it everywhere, never careful to pick up as I went,

            Treading here and there

It was blackened, hard

Full of my own sense of purpose

I was Me, and I was the I AM

I’d scramble and to prideful to cry

            Felt my way through

I’d call it progress, and hand out notes on the examples of being me

Seduction was power in more ways then one, a veiled delusion of the Grand Me

I felt worshiped and powerful, I felt like my words were dangerous tools

And I could kiss the sin away.

I toasted myself

Toasted the nights

 I toasted my life and blinded to the joke it was.

I was an empty girl, full of words and getting nowhere in all of it.

I was the THIS and the NOW, I was the version I screamed,

 “Don’t you see? I AM!!”

I was falling and desperate to pray to Him.

I was the all powerful, and He wept. 

I was drowning, celebrating dead.

I was so simple, I thought I was alive.

I was a small creature grunting useless, annoying words; my prayers were empty hollow shells.

I’d send them up, look for the answer.

 And proved, you weren’t there.

But you wept.

I toasted you with a sneer in my smile,

As sent myself contemptuously, heartlessly to hell.

I wasn’t worth a drop of blood, and you spilled it all for me.

I wasn’t worth a nail, and you wept red tears for my forgiveness.

I cursed your name, took a shot and laughed cruelly.

You bowed your head for me and whispered love.

I violated my body to prove I had power.

You served silently, died and finished it. 

I laid exposed, crying and crawling

I laid with no words

Coughed up my empty shells everywhere.

Despite the canvas of sin that painted me dead,

You rose from death

Breathed forgiveness on my flesh.

I Am the nothing.  I Am the unworthy. I Am the little girl who says silly things.

You bled tears for me!

I am alive, because your willingness to die. 

My ego swept away into dust.

I am on knees, I am the AM NOT.