It was Christmas Eve. The little ones were in bed and snowflakes had begun to fall outside, the first time in weeks. I stood at our front window gazing out at their cadenced descent, illuminated by the glow of the colored bulbs on our roof line. It was beautiful, magical even. My children had been praying and wishing for snow all month and it had come. But it tore at my heart and made my eyes sting and I felt achingly lonely. It would be a white Christmas after all…for everyone else.
For us December 25th would be just another day, because our three older children were in Reno until the 26th at their step-mother’s parent’s house. This was our delay year and we wouldn’t be having Christmas until the 27th.
This is the part of our unique family life that I don’t love.
When I began my unexpected journey as a single mother, I knew very well the kinds of outcomes that most children of divorce realize. I was committed to doing everything I could to make sure my children were not going to become part of those statistics. And as I consequently pursued a degree in Family Life I became convinced further that there was really no reason that my little family should expect anything less than the kind of happy, fulfilling life that other families enjoy. As long as we put in the work. Because it was going to take more work, more trying, more rearranging, more creativity, more adaptability, more forgiveness, more tolerance, more sacrificing, more giving…more of just about everything in order to achieve any level of existence beyond mere survival. And surviving is not where happiness is found. Happiness is found in thriving.
And so we worked. And it was hard.
A few years down the road when my little family of four became a family of five with my marriage to an incredible husband and partner, this expectation of hard was again reestablished. And, of course, the difficulty of life has only increased as our family has grown to include three more little ones. (That’s eight, by the way. EIGHT. Humans.)
And the work continues.
There is certainly plenty of joy and fun and laughter, and thus far in my blog I have focused primarily on the more polished, positive aspects of our family life. But as I have pondered on my purpose here in this vast online universe, I feel it is time to focus on what perhaps could be of better use to my readers. I believe…I hope… that is to include a little more of the real aspects of life as a large, blended family.
Real moments of chaos and clutter.
Real feelings of frustration and fear.
Real realizations that we cannot do this on our own. We need encouragement, we need each other, we need the grace of Christ.
Hard is simply part of our mortal existence. And everyone experiences their own individualized package! Mine just happens to include an unconventional family life. I have long accepted and come to peace with this:).
But it still hurts sometimes. Especially when snow is falling on December 24th and half of my children are in a desert destination hundreds of miles away.
And when it hurts, I allow myself a moment or two to mourn the absence of a “normal” life where my children are always with me and holidays occur on the day the rest of the world is celebrating them.
But only a minute. Because even though it’s not ideal, we will get our older children back, and we will get to celebrate, and we will get to include most of our traditions, and we will get to make precious, joyful memories and take five thousand pictures that never get edited or printed until somebody gets married.
And that is just what happened.
And it was magical, even without snow.
“Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.” {Psalms 31:24}
