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Southern Fried Encouragement

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Southern Fried Encouragement

Monthly Archives: November 2015

She Didn’t Have to Be

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Southern Fried Encouragement in A Mama's Heart

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

divorce, remarriage, stepmother, stepparenting

My daddy and I went to live with my Grandpa and Grandma Bunton, and my aunt Bet, when my parents split up. While Daddy was working as a telephone man at Southern Bell, I stayed home with Grandpa and Grandma, fussing when Grandpa’s electric razor made the Old Rebel and Captain Kangaroo fuzzy on the old black and white TV.

Daddy met a beautiful telephone operator at a union meeting named Martha and fell in love with her. Before long, so did I. She had green eyes and long, dark hair with big curls — and three school -aged children — and I adored her. On a blustery, cloudy day in November 1969, they went to the Justice of the Peace in Greensboro (since no preacher would marry them because they had both been divorced), and she took on a new husband and his four year old daughter.

I was sitting in the floor playing with my Lite Brite when they walked in at Grandpa and Grandma’s. I jumped in her arms and said, “Can I call you Mama now?” For reasons that were outside my control, my parents were divorced, and I knew in my heart that God had given her to us. Daddy and I both needed her — badly.

We moved into her house and blended our families. Mama quit her job and stayed home to raise me. She watched the Old Rebel and Captain Kangaroo with me, only she didn’t run an electric razor and make the TV fuzzy.

I couldn’t wait for my new brothers and sister to come in from school every day. Mama had supper on the table when Daddy got home from work, and she would let me help her cook and clean. It was a happy time.

It wasn’t until I started school that I realized I was different. None of the other kids had two moms. Their siblings had the same last names as they did. They weren’t going out of town to visit their non-custodial parent like I was. In the early ’70’s, blended families were the exception.

Before long, I began to feel the sting at church. Some parents didn’t want their child at my house to play because my parents were divorced. I guess they feared we were a bad influence, or maybe their child would catch divorce cooties. I never understood it.

Mama was undeterred. Even though no preacher would marry her and Daddy, and some other moms shunned me, she held her head high and kept taking me to church. Again I’m forced to say, the world has never hurt me — but people who name the Name of Jesus have caused me great pain.

Jesus was different like me. He also had a stepparent, and the religious community shunned them as well. His mother, Mary carried the son of another Man — the offspring of the Holy Spirit Himself. Joseph was skeptical of taking on a child that wasn’t his, but Matthew 1:20-21 tells us,

 . . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Although Jesus didn’t belong to Joseph, he made the conscious CHOICE to love and raise Him as his son. He didn’t have to. He could have put Mary away and decided to find a wife with less baggage.

No angel spoke to Mama, and I surely wasn’t conceived by the Holy Spirit! But she took Daddy and his baggage anyway. I got the same love, and the same discipline, as her biological children. Because of her, I can cook, clean, sew, do any craft I set my mind to — she’s the reason I am the wife and mother I am today. I had the best example I could ever have hoped for.

She could have been just my stepmother. I’ve never called her that because of all the Cinderella/wicked stepmother images that come to mind! Instead, she chose to be my Mama. Every time I hear Brad Paisley’s, “He Didn’t Have to Be,” I still get a catch in my throat.

It could have gone a different way. She didn’t have to quit her job to stay home and raise me. I was mouthy and sassy and loud. I cried when she made me wear anything lacy. I didn’t like sleeping alone. I refused to stop sucking my thumb no matter what she did — to the tune of a lot of expensive orthodontic work. I put the dog in my bed when she left my room every night even though she didn’t want him on the furniture. I’m sure I was quite the bratty little sister to Ricky, Jo Anne and Dean as well.

Even with all of that, she loved me and treated me just like she treated her other children. She always made us a cake on our birthday’s.

mama and me

So when I grew up, I set my mind to do all the things she taught me to do. I made her one when it was her birthday.

mama cake
They were married 36 1/2 years before we lost Daddy. She lovingly cared for him until his last breath, and he died laying right next to her. Thank you for loving him, and for loving me, Mama. We never would have made it without you.

mama and daddy

Who would have thought that God was using her not only to prepare me to be a wife and mother, but also how to blend a family with love one day? Now I’m in Mama’s shoes. I married a man who already had two children. Because of her example, I’m dedicated to loving Joseph and Kelly as the two new blessings I’ve been given, treating them the same as I treat my biological children. Through blurred vision with grateful tears, I thank God my husband loves my children that way as well. We got them a lot later than Mama got me, but I pray they will always be thankful they were given not just a stepparent, but a second Mama and Pops.

Sadly, divorced families are no longer the exception. There are untold numbers of children living in homes without both biological parents. If you find yourself with children who don’t share your DNA, please, please, please look into that face that doesn’t look like yours, and love that precious child. Treat them like they were birthed to you, loving them unconditionally . . . like next generation depends on it — because it does.

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The Art of Being Yourself

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by Southern Fried Encouragement in Strength for the Journey

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

be yourself, fearfully and wonderfully made, harper valley PTA, sing and dance

My Daddy’s family had some very musically talented folks. So many either sang or played an instrument. Daddy tried to teach me to play the guitar, but he always said I quit when I couldn’t play the “Spanish Fandango” after the first lesson. How I wish I’d stuck with it.

I couldn’t play the guitar, and I could barely read piano music, but I LOVED to sing and dance. I’d spend every penny of my allowance on 45’s, playing them over and over, learning every word, and singing in my hairbrush as my microphone.

We went to a little country church with my Grandma Bunton and my Aunt Bet. They loved the Lord, and they kept the rules. I remember a lot of hell-fire and damnation preaching, but I also remember my sweet Grandma singing the old hymns she loved so dearly. She had the most beautiful alto voice, bringing the special music nearly every week.

They used to ask me to sing at church, too, and since I wanted to be just like Grandma, and I didn’t have a shy bone in my body, I was happy to oblige. I would dutifully sing the old stand-by’s like Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children. But those were getting old . . . .

I was only four years old, but I can remember it so clearly. I had on a new pair of white Go-Go boots (the height of fashion in 1969!), and it seemed like a good time to shake it up a bit and sing my favorite song: Harper Valley PTA!

For those of you young’un’s who’ve never heard of that song, it’s about a single mother raising her daughter, and the local PTA thinks she wears her mini skirts too short, so she calls out all their hypocritical behavior. I encourage you to check out Jeannie C. Riley rocking her own white Go-Go boots and enjoy a real classic by clicking this link for your viewing pleasure:

Jeannie C. Riley’s Harper Valley PTA

I had my hand on my hip, shakin’ my stuff, belting out as loudly as I could, I WANNA TELL YOU ALL A STORY ‘BOUT A HARPER VALLEY WIDOWED WIFE . . . 

I can still see my Mama’s shocked face, my sister holding her hand over her mouth, trying hard not to laugh out loud, and Mrs. Rayle on the front row, hurrying to shut down my Go-Go dancing performance. I never got past the first verse . . .

That may have been the end of my singing career at Plainview Baptist Church.

Sometime along in my mid teens, however, I started to think my personality wasn’t optimal. I believed the lie that I was too outgoing, that there was something wrong with being an extrovert. I spent the next 25 years asking God to change me, help me be someone else. I tried really hard, and almost always failed, to be the quiet type.

Every time I was with people and the real me would inevitably come out, I would feel guilty later. Time after time, I would resolve myself to try harder not to draw any attention to myself. But inside, I was still that little girl, holding her hairbrush, singing and dancing in her room. When no one was looking and I was home alone, I could be me.

I got my love of music from my Daddy’s side, but I got my MOUTH from my mother’s side. When the Edwards family gets together, it can be chaotic, it’s always loud, and to me, always fun. They fussed and argued, but they loved each other, and I loved them dearly.

In 2005, my Grandpa Edwards died of a stroke. I sat there in the funeral home, trying to be quiet, trying to not talk to too many people — I’d gotten into the habit of constantly reminding myself of how I was supposed to act: be quiet, don’t talk too much, just sit there, no one really cares what you have to say, begging God to help me not to be me. It was an impossible task.

I watched my uncles, aunts and cousins talk to one another, and laugh and cut up. You see, my Grandpa Edwards loved the Lord, and although we were going to miss him terribly, we all knew he had been ready to go for years, and we would see him again. He was always the life of the party, and he would have wanted us to celebrate his life.

As I observed everyone else cutting up, very clearly, the still, small voice of the Spirit said to me, “Look at them. They’re fearfully and wonderfully made, just like you are. Don’t be ashamed of how I made you. I didn’t make a mistake. There’s nothing wrong with them, and there’s nothing wrong with you either.”

I felt a burden I’d been carrying for 25 years lift off my shoulders. I had been given this personality just the same as I’d been born a girl with brown eyes and blonde hair. Girls are not less than boys, brown eyes are not less than green or blue, and blonde isn’t less than brown, black or red; so being an extrovert wasn’t less than being an introvert. I wasn’t sinless, but I was okay. Just like I was.

That does NOT mean I don’t have to bring my personality under submission! I shouldn’t be talking when I’m supposed to be listening, and acting silly when I’m supposed to be serious. But it DOES mean I don’t have to be ashamed of how God made me, and neither do you!! Zephaniah 3:17 says,

The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.

He loves to sing and rejoice over us, as He delights in His creation!

These days, I sing and dance to my heart’s content! My children love music as well, and they will grab a hairbrush and sing along with their Mama at the drop of a hat. I’m the first one on the dance floor at weddings and the last one to leave.

If you pull up beside me at an intersection, you’re likely to see me having my own little concert. If my husband is driving, you might even see me hanging out the sunroof, singing at the top of my lungs. He doesn’t mind. Just like Jesus, he loves me just like I am.

If you’ve felt there’s something wrong with your personality, that you’re less than others, if someone has told you you’re not good enough, don’t believe the lie. Hold your head high, straighten your back and stand tall. The Creator of the Universe takes great delight in you — this is your awakening.

 

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Let it go!

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by Southern Fried Encouragement in Strength for the Journey

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

acceptance, let it go

Letting go is easier said than done for me. I’ve had to let go of a lot of things I was grasping too tightly, and every time, it has been a struggle. Most times, I feel like God has had to pry my fingers off of a situation that I couldn’t stop worrying about, thinking about, obsessing over, and trying to fix.

— I had to let go of my children as they grew up and needed, wanted, and deserved their independence.

— I had to let go of my Daddy when he was dying. If love could have healed him, he would never have died.

— I had to let go of a marriage I couldn’t save. Try as I did, I couldn’t salvage it.

— I had to let go of fixing (also known as CONTROLLING) other people’s lives. This one nearly killed me — it just can’t be done.

There is also another kind of letting go — letting go of people who want to walk away from you.

Sometimes you are the letting go-ER and sometimes you’re the letting go-EE.

There are people who are no longer an integral and active part of my life anymore — either because they made a concerted effort to leave, or because life simply took us in different directions, or because other things in their lives became more important and I was no longer on their list of priorities. Whether it was intentional or not, their absence left a hole, and I had no choice but to let them walk away.

Letting go doesn’t mean I no longer care.

It means I’m accepting what I can’t change.

Looking back, I can see how most everything I let go of brought peace in the end. I see now that God was trying to separate me from impossible situations where things weren’t going to get better — even with the death of my Daddy. It’s when I accepted what I couldn’t change that I found healing.

Dear friends suggested I memorize the long form of the Serenity Prayer, and in the darkest times of my life when I hurt so badly I couldn’t think of what to pray, I would say this prayer and it brought me great comfort —  and it still does. Most of us have heard the first verse, but the rest of it is every bit as powerful.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen

Relationships and friendships end for a reason, even if we can’t see why at the time. It takes a tremendous amount of faith to trust that God will make ALL things right if I surrender to HIS will — not mine, and to accept this sometimes painful world as it is, not how I would make it if I had ANY control over it.

When someone leaves your life, it helps to trust what 1 John 2:19 says,

They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

It’s okay, even healthy, for people to go their separate ways! Of the people who have walked away from me, even though it hurt and I needed time to grieve the loss, I can now look back and see why it happened. Either the relationship was unhealthy and full of chaos and needed to go away, or things had changed so much that we no longer had anything in common anyway. Sometimes we just need to trust that things happen for the best!

If you’re struggling with letting go of some person, place or thing that is leaving you hurting you and causing you to lose peace, contentment and serenity in your life, I’ll leave you with a few lines from my favorite TD Jakes quote. I couldn’t say it better than this!

There are people who can walk away from you.
And hear me when I tell you this! When people can walk
Away from you: let them walk.
I don’t want you to try to talk another person into staying with you,
Loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you,
Staying attached to you.
I mean hang up the phone.
When people can walk away from you let them walk.
Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left.

People leave you because they are not joined to you.
And if they are not joined to you, you can’t make them stay.
Let them go.
And it doesn’t mean that they are a bad person it just means
That their part in the story is over. And you’ve got
To know when people’s part in your story is over so that you
Don’t keep trying to raise the dead.
You’ve got to know when it’s dead.
You’ve got to know when it’s over. Let me tell you something.
I’ve got the gift of good-bye. It’s the tenth spiritual gift,
I believe in good-bye. It’s not that I’m hateful,
it’s that I’m faithful, and I know whatever God
Means for me to have He’ll give it to me.
And if it takes too much sweat I don’t need it.
Stop begging people to stay.

If you care to watch him preach this on YouTube — and it’s a good one! — Click here:

TD Jakes LET THEM GO

There is FREEDOM in letting go of what we can’t change! Acceptance is the answer to all our problems today!

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