Yesterday, Rodrigo and I stood in church together, the kids tucked up underneath our arms, throwing me wide-eyed looks of is-it-over-yet? and I got choked up, great big tears rolled down my cheeks. I’m sure the kids thought I was moved by the music, which would be difficult in that particular church. It wasn’t the music. I was touched by our nearness, our togetherness, how close we are to one another right now. I never imagined that all my homesickness, my ache for the familiar landscape of Seattle would reap such a tender harvest: the renewed appreciation for my family.
Back in the States we were on the move all the time. We had one activity after another and dozens of rich and precious friendships. I miss them with a profound ache, but here, my life is staggeringly slower, smaller, simpler. We are together all the time. I’ve mentioned that Rodrigo and I both drop off the kids, pick up the kids, and eat lunch together every day. During this season of loneliness, we’ve been knit together.
When I was sixteen my parents got a divorce. It’s something I talk about with friends, you can’t exactly keep divorce a secret – and there were reasons. And in the last fifteen years both of my parents have done a marvelous job of building bridges, showing kindness, salvaging whatever they can to extend grace and love to their daughters and grandchildren. Both of them have made selfless choices to be good parents and exceptional grandparents. I’m ever so thankful for the example my parents have given me, that amidst all the pain and difficulties of life, we still have choices. We still have the power to make decisions – and we can choose to build up or tear down – almost always. They’ve shown me that building up might be more costly, in particular to our pride and ego, but almost always invaluable.
However, the thing about divorce is, no matter what the reason, it yields life-long pain and regret. One never quite gets over a divorce. It lingers long after the papers have been signed. One can’t tear asunder something that became one flesh without it ricocheting off the numerous lives it touches, leaving a wake of sorrow. And while, I hold no bitterness for my parents divorce, and love my mom and dad intensely, I’m also incredibly thankful for my marriage. I don’t take for granted at all that my kids get to wake up and see both their parents in the same bed, they get to see them kiss and hug, and wash the dishes together. They get to hear them fight and make up, apologize and pray together, forgive and reconcile. It creates a foundation for life that is perhaps its richest blessing.
My dad once said that when his parents got divorced, when he was five or six, he lost his compass for truth. Truth broke. It’s easy to think of truth as facts and knowledge, when in many ways truth is relational. We learn the importance of relationships by being in them. We learn we are whole and good and safe by living in a safe and good community, we learn our singularity and unique gifts in the way they touch and impact those around us. And this begins in the the family. We learn the truth of love and compassion by being in true and compassionate relationships. We also learn the gift of forgiveness and of belonging through family.
I get that in today’s world, family has many faces. Some are raised by grandparents, or one parent, some have step-dads and step-moms and I’m not arguing with any of that. And in many cases, mine in particular, all of those pieces add great depth to a person’s life. But today, I’m ever so thankful for the gift of my family, that although my kids’ lives, while transient and undergoing incredible change, are anchored by a nucleus that is strong, and grounded on commitment and unyielding vows.
Emma wrote her dad a poem in Spanish for Father’s Day. Some of her words were misspelled and it wasn’t all cohesive, but her love for him and her confidence in his love for her were crystal clear – they sang out in lyrical Spanish and made me cry. (I know, what doesn’t make me cry?)
Many of my posts are a long trail of tears …. this one today, is one of hope, of gratitude, of recognition that we are here together, as a family, and that is a gift I hold close to my heart and will covet forever.
Thank you for staying with me, for encouraging us on our path here in Chile, and for your unconditional love. For all the fathers out there reading … I hope you know you are gifts to your children. No matter what’s happened, what’s been done – press into relationship, as awkward as it can be, and love courageously.
Have a wonderful day.
Much love,
Tina
Thanks for continuing to share your heart and your story. You are a blessing to your family, friends, and strangers alike who read your ponderings. We miss you too. 🙂 I am encouraged to see the things the Lord continues to do in and through you! Thanks be to Him who strengthens families even in the midst of pain!
Bethesda, Your prayers and love are coveted. Thank you. And yes, I’m so thankful he strengthens us in the midst of pain.
Much love,
Tina
Oh Tina…again such encouragement! Thank you for your honesty and transparency – it reaches and touches so many. Thank you for being willing to share your heart with all of us. You are a blessing…
Love and miss you my friend…xo
I miss you too. Love hearing from you. I hope you have a great and rich and warm summer full of hope and that you get to see some of your secret prayers answered.
Love you.
T
I’ve mulled this post over for days. It puts words to the interesting things I’ve been feeling while living in a culture that is so driven and so activity/sport based but not having the desire that those things define our life. It’s part of why life out of the city suits me, us so well. But it also means that our life looks weird to some and makes it easy to say “oh but your kids are missing out on __________”. And those things are hard to swallow. Hard to hear. And they certainly make the pursuit of growing a tight-knit family feel lonely sometimes.
We were visiting a mega-church a few weeks ago for a friends’ baptism. An older woman came up to me afterwards and told me “I could hardly listen to the sermon…sitting behind your family. I wanted to just sit and watch you all. So much love. There is so much love in your family, it is so precious.” Hands wrapped up together, arms around one another, littles on laps….it looks so odd here. No matter how much it is the way I want to walk, it is hard to be odd sometimes.
I love what you wrote and I love the way your family has been knit together in this intimate way through this upheaval and challenge.
It’s good to hear from someone else who is going upstream and trying to hold still and mold their family rather than let the image of what is good for a kid or family, in one particular generation, shape your lives.
I’m reading a book called The Mayflower about the Pilgrims. It’s stunning how they walked into such hardship because they believed God was calling them to something different, something not everyone wanted. I think a lot of us are grateful they had a vision for something freedom. You are the daughter of pioneers … you are doing exactly what you were born to do …. take the lead and go somewhere, lead people into another way of life.
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch
I think of these lines often and believe in the beauty and goodness of a life grounded and maintained in obscurity, where no one sees your sacrifice, no one has any idea what it’s cost you to go and do what you’re doing … and no one is really supposed to. But many will build on what you’ve laid down.
I love you,
Tina