This “new me” I’m working on sure is a flake! I woke up this morning feeling indifferent, which isn’t far off from my usual mood every morning, I’m not a morning person, never really have been. But I’m learning not to say that’s who I’ll always be, because truth be told, I’d like to have a better attitude in the mornings. To not wake up and immediately think “MEH!”, sounds much more appealing. I’m definitely a work in progress! In my last post I told y’all how my Bible study group had read “The Power to Change” by Craig Groeschel. Feeling less than inspired and more of a just going through the motion’s vibe today, I picked it up and flipped randomly to page 90. At the top of the page, I had highlighted, ” Make doing your habit your win. Obsess over the process instead of the outcome. You don’t get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the actions that get the results.” As my Granny would say, “Shazam!” Profound words Mr. Groeschel. He explains that if you set a goal for yourself with the mindset that you’ll “try” to accomplish it, you’re setting yourself up with the option of failure. If we instead “train” towards our goal, there’s no room for failure because we’re actively moving in the direction of our goal. In other words, put one foot in front of the other, do the thing that’s taking you in the direction you want to go. It doesn’t have to be perfect (none of us are Jesus). And if you don’t feel like it, DO IT ANYWAY! When we get to the finish line (whatever that looks like for each of us) it’ll all have been worth it. For me that means looking for inspiration from multiple sources, the Bible being number one on the list. This morning, I landed in the book of Esther and found the motivation I needed to get to work. Esther had to risk her life to plead for her people the Jews to not be killed simply because of one man’s (Haman’s) ego. The verse that really stood out to me was Esther 4:14 CSB “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.” Please don’t misunderstand I’m NOT suggesting I’m in any kind of “royal” or higher position than anyone. But I do know that God has been pressing me forward, to share His word and my story not because I’m royal, or perfect, but because I’m as messed up as they come, but He still chooses me anyway. So like Esther, I’m not going to be silent, but instead believe that relief and deliverance will be given to me and “my father’s family” by trusting in Him. And in many ways, it already has…
After I hung up with the D.A. that morning, I called Ray to give him the news. I hurried to get dressed and when Granny’s caregiver arrived, I was in the car and headed home as fast as I could drive without getting pulled over and hauled off to jail myself. Ray had said he was planning to go by and check on his mother, but that he’d be home after that. I didn’t know if I was coming or going, there was a steady hum between my ears, and I was pacing the floors until he got home. When he finally did arrive, he looked like I felt, frazzled, but amped up. He said, ” I need you to go get the girls”, so that’s what I did. When Faye, Alex and I were all assembled on the patio with him, he proceeded to tell us what had happened in the time since he’d hung up with me earlier. He said he was on his way to his parents’ house, when a truck resembling his father’s pulled out of a parking lot behind him and was driving erratically swerving in and out of traffic, flashing its lights at him. He decided to continue on to their house and if it was him, he’d see him there. When he pulled up to their driveway, sure enough, his dad pulled up too. He got out and came over to Ray and awkwardly asked if he could hug him, and without waiting for an answer, he wrapped his arms around him as Ray stood there frozen. He quickly dropped his embrace and began to tell Ray about the “horror” that his last twelve hours had been. How awful jail was, how the handcuffs hurt, and Ray who was dumbfounded shouted at him, “Yeah dad, kind of like the torture you put the girls through, but not even close to as bad.” He turned and headed for the house and his dad followed after him. When he walked into the kitchen, he found his mother walking in circles around the island and when he tried to go to her and hug her, she rejected him, mumbling incoherently to herself. His dad had gone into his office with a handful of paperwork, so he decided to follow him in there. When he walked in, he asked his father what was going to happen next. Ray Sr. answered that he’d just come from his attorney’s office and that he was going to plead “no contest” so that the girl’s would never have to get on the stand in a trial, as if he were sparing them in some way, and then he started to rant again about how terrible his time in jail was and how he and Ray’s other sister had decided that they were ,”Done with Melissa”, to which Ray retorted, “Oh now you’re breaking up with us, even though we already did that? Are you going to tear this family even further apart Dad, or take us all down with you?”, and his dad answered, “I just might.” At that, he turned and headed for the garage door to leave and said it was at this point that “the zombie in the kitchen came to life”, and her and Ray Sr. both followed him out. His mother was screaming at him to tell Alex that the next time that she saw her, “she was going to strangle her to death.” He came back at her with, “You dishonor your dead daughter by saying that” then picked up a trashcan and threw it at her car out of sheer frustration, and his father came at him. Ray punched him solidly in the jaw, and his dad fell to the ground with blood trickling from the side of his mouth and he said, “Is that all you’ve got son?” He spun on his heel and didn’t look back, heading straight for home and reeling from everything that had just transpired that was yet a new level of dysfunction and heartbreak. After he finished his story, we all just sat there, tears rolled down the girls faces, I think my mouth may have hung open. In my mind I was questioning whether the girls needed to hear that story, mostly because of the horrible reality that came from knowing how their grandmother and the rest of the family felt about us. In the end I understood that the time for secrets was over, all for one, one for all. At least that was true for the seven of us, now outcasts from the rest.
I’d like to say that I have complete and total clarity since then, but that’s not the case. These people who liked to blame me for everything, had somehow found a way to yet again, pin this on me? What had I done that they themselves wouldn’t do for their own children? What had they expected from me? How in the world was Alex at fault? Were we all supposed to sacrifice ourselves for this man who couldn’t even offer an apology for all he’d done? Was I supposed to let the state take my children away and be placed in foster care? Did they expect me to face my own charges for failing to protect those babies from this monster? Alex’s words continue to echo in my head, “I don’t want to blow up our entire family.” I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that not a single one of them could even try to care about what he’d done to the girls, to Ray, to the position it put us all in, to have to pick a side. I know the side I want to be on, the RIGHT side, the side where the victims are BLAMELESS. James 1:27 CSB says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” Sleep is already elusive to me; I can’t imagine a world where I’d ever sleep again had I not done what was right on behalf of these children. For better or for worse, this was the road that was meant for Ray and me to walk, with the kids right in the middle.
The D.A. called me at some point after they’d paid $50,000.00 in cash to bail my father-in-law out of jail. She wanted to check on us and explain how the process would unfold. It looked like it could be up to a year to get us on the docket, they needed their case against him to be iron clad, so there could be no stone left unturned. There had been other distant family members that had started to come forward as victims, who would all need to be interviewed. We were all discouraged to hear that he had that much time to just live his life as if none of this mattered, as if we were just the people trying to ruin his life, while in the meantime, we were worrying about running into him somewhere, always looking over our shoulder. The day that we originally confronted him, we had asked him to please refrain from coming to the church we’d attended for many years at that point. Our kids had all been baptized there and literally grown up there, but he’d begun to attend as well after we lost Denise. He agreed to find a different church and started to go with his other daughter to the church she’d been going to. One Sunday morning a few weeks after the showdown with him and Ray, the kids and I were heading to meet Austin at church. Ray III was driving when Austin Facetimed me and was distraught when I answered. I asked what was wrong and he just said, “They’re here.” I knew exactly who “they” were and what he was saying. Have you ever known something was absolutely wrong, but ignored it and done it anyway? This was a moment that happened to me that I can never take back. My sweet son tried to turn the car around, but I was enraged and told him, “Absolutely not, drive to the church now!” I had told Austin to wait for us in the parking lot, and he was when we got there. I jumped from the car before it was in park and ran inside. Before I even knew what I would say, the words flew out of my mouth. “We asked you not to come here, this is our church that these kids have grown up in! There’s a church on every corner in this town, go find one!” To which my sister-in-law replied, “Maybe you’re the one who needs to find a new church”, while her father looked me right in the eye and raised his middle finger at me right there in church. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I just turned and stalked out, humiliated by the spectacle we’d all just caused in The Lord’s house. On my way out, Carly and her girl’s and grandbabies were walking in, and I told them to not let them near the child molester when they got in there. Then I saw Ray III stomping furiously toward the entrance and had Austin grab him before he could get past him. As we were pulling out our poor Pastor came to my window and was apologizing asking what he could do, but I told him we were just going to go home, the kids were all crying, the girls hysterical. On the way home CeeCee called and said that they’d asked them to leave and then our Pastor called and asked us to come back. The kids wanted to go home, so I took them there and told Ray about what had happened and went back. It was embarrassing and humbling to have to get up in front of our congregation and confide everything in them, but every person there was beyond gracious and prayed on our behalf. What they and satan had meant to hurt us, actually reinforced God’s faithfulness. But to this day there are repercussions to me ignoring what I know was The Holy Spirit nudging me to not go and behave the way I did. That memory is with me, raw and humbling, reminding me what happens when I try to take control.
The rage inside me started to kick in at some point shortly after the confrontation between Ray and his parents. I was incredulous and at a loss of how to ease the pain my family was dealing with. The motherly instinct in me somehow thought there was a way I was going to fix this, and then reality would hit, and I’d be back at square one, helpless and frustrated, outraged, horrified, anxious, with literally zero control. It was during that season, that I learned to actually trust in God. What else could I do? There was absolutely nothing, but that. I prayed, I prayed with Ray and the kids, I prayed with family, with friends, in the car, in the barn, in the overnight lonely hours when I couldn’t sleep, basically all the time and everywhere. And something began to shift inside me as I did. It was so subtle and because I was so caught up in the angst of it all, I couldn’t see it. The rage was being replaced by something; a peace had begun to root itself in its place. I wasn’t in control, but God was and the confidence in that began to grow. Without that season, I’d never be where I’m at in my relationship with my Heavenly Father. The things that we’ve suffered through have taught me that He really is what sustains me, through anything that life and the enemy throw at me. ALL THINGS, he can make all things good. There are times when I feel like I can’t be hurt or betrayed by the ones I used to call my family anymore, and yet every now and then it hits me out of nowhere. I’ll have a memory of the good times that we did share, of times when the kids could laugh and love with their cousins and their grandparents, when my husband still had a family that he knew loved him. But no, life can be cruel and so can people. Heartbreak happens, there are things that ONLY God can reconcile, and we’ve certainly lived it. In my innermost being when I feel myself starting to question where things are headed, He reminds me, He’s with me, my hope is in Him.
Psalm 39:7: “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.” (ESV)
