The Perfect Family - NOT

I recently posted a family photo on Facebook and received so many sweet comments from friends and family, but I have to be real with you. 

Social media is deceiving. 

Pictures are deceiving.

Those sweet smiling faces that you see on our faces are intentionally posed with happiness, but behind those smiles, there are some very broken people.

Our family includes children (and now adults) who have experienced significant trauma in their early years. My husband and I experienced our own hardships as children and have had to continue to learn how to overcome so many learned dysfunctional behaviors.

Our family is not perfect. In fact, we have had some really dark moments - times when Scott and I were ready to throw in the towel. Those days haven’t just disappeared. We have good days with our children, but we also have really hard days. When we wake, we never really know which way the day is going to go.

On top of caring for children with special needs, we deal with 

Lies, manipulation, and stealing.

Trauma.

Depression.

Anxiety attacks.

Suicide threats have been brought up in our home by more than one child.

Our counselor back in Arkansas told me that I suffer from secondary PTSD. I looked up the symptoms. She was right on.

One child has been diagnosed with attachment disorder. If you don’t know what this is, imagine hateful actions and words being spoken in an attempt to completely push a loved one away FOREVER. The moment when things start to really fall into place, all hell breaks loose in an attempt to stop all the bonding that healthy families should experience. 

Unhealed trauma and pain creates opportunity to inflict even deeper wounds on those who try to love the unhealed. Unhealed trauma creates more dysfunction because it’s all about survival and when we are in survival mode, we can’t possibly consider anyone else around us. We have to save ourselves!

So when you look at our picture, I want you to see the truth. We are a family woven together through God's amazing plan. But in the weaving, he has placed broken people together, not before we were all fixed, but so that we could walk through healing together. We are a family that has trod the deepest oceans of despair believing all hope lost. There have been sleepless nights, deep wounds, broken hearts, and countless tears. We are still walking through the healing, Friends, we are not the perfect family, but He is perfecting us in His love, one day at a time.

I share this, because I want you to know that our family is not living the fairytale dream, and I know that yours isn’t too. 

2019 is the year that I intend on opening up more about REAL life, but not without sharing the most important point of all of this.

THERE IS HOPE.

HE IS HOPE.

JESUS didn’t just come to bring us eternal salvation once we die. 

He came to give us a full life HERE and NOW. 

Trauma can be healed. Hearts can be made whole again. I know, because He has continued to do a healing work in me. My husband is not the same man I first married, and I love him even more because of who he is today. I see God working in my children’s hearts. Some are being healed faster than others. To be honest, some children are harder to love because of how they respond to their pain, but I refuse to give up on any of them. If anything has taught me what true love is, it is the hard places we've walked through as a family.

So, I will surrender to HIM, even when my heart has been beat down and trodden over, so that He can have every opportunity to do His work in all of our hearts.

I will wage war against the enemy in order to establish the healthy family I know He has called us to be.

I want to invite you to do the same. 

This year, I invite you to join me in praying harder than ever before for your loved ones. 

This year, I dare you to believe the impossible for your family. 

What is it you are believing for your family? 

Write it down! 

Ask!

Declare His promises, 

and  

Believe!

As for me, I am believing for deeper healing in each child’s heart. I believe my child with attachment disorder will be set free from the rejection and trauma that has caused so much pain in our home and healthy attachment will take place. God must come in and turn that heart of stone into a heart of flesh to make it possible. It is an impossible task, and I fully expect to see it happen because my God is the God of the impossible!

Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

John 10:10 - The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Ezekiel 36:26 - I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Matthew 19:26 - But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

#Godisforus #impossiblethingsarehappeningeveryday #amiraclecanhappennow #faith #ibelieve #healyourtrauma 

#healthyfamilies #adoption #traumaawareness #attachmentdisorder #fightforyourfamily #nomoredysfunction