I really get angry when I read about parents harming, murdering and maiming their children. I almost get to the point I cannot breathe. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that a parent has absolutely no thoughts toward the pain they are inflicting...not only on their child, but on their family.
Has our society gotten to the point that we only look out for ourselves...and even the children we've birthed mean nothing? Oh my Lord in Heaven, I hope not!
As a single young mother of three children, I remember being over-whelmed with the tasks at hand. All three in different activities at school and at church. And then one of them would tell me they NEEDED something from the store by tomorrow and I'd have -$150 in my checking account.
There were times my temper probably murdered their spirits...my reactions caused them to feel less than who they were. But it never crossed my mind to end their lives.
Fleeting times I would think about the peace I would have if I wasn't living through the pain and hardship... and thankfully I have found that that is a normal thought for parents who are overwhelmed with the responsibilities in front of them. Never once did I think about inflicting permanent bodily harm on my children.
When does one cross that line? I read on one website: "What makes a parent harm, or even worse, kill the most precious part of them, their children? Is the rage they feel against that child so great that it must manifest itself in so horrible a thing as murder? Why, why, why, we ask? What makes a parent destroy an innocent child, destroy the future of that parent, destroy the lives of the family, and sicken the community?"
In this age of performance is everything (even movie stars' lives are page one news these days) my personal feeling is that we don't think we are fitting the 'norm' and so we become depressed. Then we don't get help and we get depressed further into a valley that seems everlasting.
I'll never forget waking one morning in 1992. Getting my children ready for school and me for work. Sitting down as a family for breakfast and I couldn't swallow. My heart started skipping beats then beating too fast. I kept thinking I was going to die, yet, in front of my children I wanted everything to appear normal. I pushed my breakfast away, because I couldn't swallow. Told the kids I wasn't hungry and went into my room and waited for them to leave for school.
I called my sister in law (thank you Vickie!) and told her I thought I was having a heart attack. She rushed over and took me to the doctor. What a fabulous man. He took time with me and asked me what had been happening in my life. Well...where do I begin?
I had raised 3 children on my own since 1981.
I had a job until I went on vacation for a week and came back and the shop had been sold and I was jobless with no skills.
I slept for 3 months after that until a friend dragged me to JobLink where I realized skills I didn't know I had...computer skills. Didn't want to stop going there, but they placed me in a job at a UMC.
I had no health insurance for me or the kids.
I had one car.
Three different schools...3 PTA meetings,
My oldest son was going to graduate in a few months.
I was 3 months behind on my house payments.
I had bounced about 20 checks just trying to keep up. (now...did that make sense?)
I had creditors calling 24/7.
And I kept going to church, smiling, pretending that life was normal.
And that day...it all caught up with me and I crashed. I crashed very hard. I was as the doctor said "a moment" from a total nervous breakdown.
And I really just wanted to give up, give in and go away. The pressure had finally taken its toll and I wanted to check out of life.
I understand how someone can get to that point. I really do. But it's one thing acting upon the 'uselessness' of it all...it's another thing to resist the urge to lose control. I resisted...and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
I really wanted to die. It would have been so easy. I really wanted to hurt someone because I had been hurt so much...it would have been so easy.
And yet...here I am writing about the blackest months of my whole life.
It took 100mg of Zoloft for two years to get me out of that funky place. It took months of Christian counseling to get me to the point that I could climb out of a hole and look around.
During that two years my oldest son announced he had signed up to go into the Air Force (without even discussing it with me...I guess I wasn't hiding it as well as I thought I was-- he knew I was in that hole.)
It was beginning to get black again. But this time, I knew I didn't want to go back to the hopelessness I had felt during the darkest time of my life.
It took two years of clawing and scratching to get my head above water. When I finally admitted I had a problem to my pastor whom I was working for at the time, puzzle pieces that had been missing for so long, began to be found.
I thank God that I could turn to HIM in the middle of my darkness.
And that's what is missing in the world. What a difference it would be if they just knew Jesus.
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