That could have gone better

So yesterday I told you about the decision that I came to, that I felt that I needed some space and I got the two reactions that I expected to get. Left field and right field, kind of like what I’m feeling right now.

I love Dax, he’s very honest and open and went right to the root of it, God and my son. Oddly enough those are the two things that I worry about myself. Can I even tell you that this whole situation to me is something that I prayed and hoped I would never have to deal with? Can I tell you that for as long as I can remember I always thought that divorce or separation was never the answer? Sometimes we can be naïve though can’t we?

The way our home life is built has three adults, a teenager and J, the three year old. There is always someone home for him, period. Mostly it’s two people with M being one and being passed out. So it’ll be me and M, or M and her mom, or M and her sister, with J always in tow. He is the jewel of everyone’s eye. He’s a awesome human being and a spunky little kid.

After I wrote up my little thing on here I got a call from my MIL that she felt that my wife needed to go back into the ER again. She was still mostly asleep, she was having difficulty with her balance and her mother was finally worried. She’s been this way for three weeks at this point.

So I’m on the phone with her mother. I’m listening and I’m talking and I realize that I really just need to say my piece and that I need to tell her what’s on my mind:
“Listen. I just, I need to tell you. I woke up this morning and I felt like I needed to make a choice and I feel like I need to get away.”

“You mean like leave?”

“Yea. You know just-“

“Then go. Leave.”

“Well that’s just it. I’m just wondering. I mean, I’m at peace with the decision and I’ve always felt that if a decision was wrong God would point that out, it wouldn’t sit right. If I’m at peace with it, what does that say, have we made the wrong choices with M?”
“You know, I don’t know. I know that the devil can make you feel peaceful and make it feel like its right even when it’s not.”

“I know but, it doesn’t feel like a spiritual conflict. It doesn’t feel like two sides, it just feels peaceful.”

“Well if you feel like you need to leave, then go. No one can stop you. God wouldn’t have loved Jesus any less if He hadn’t gone to the cross. But I’ll tell you this right now, I will fight you tooth and nail for J.”

(Keep in mind that I’m talking to my Mother in Law)

“Excuse me?”

“You made that boy sit and watch a hockey game with you for two hours on Saturday. That’s abuse.”

“What?”

“That’s abuse. Having a child sit still for two hours is abuse.”

“Hold it, back up. You realize that this has spun out like this and it didn’t come from me right? I was just talking, I needed a sounding board. You tell me you’re the Sheppard and that we should come to you. I’m coming to you and this is all that you have for me? Allegations? Really?”

“If you need to go, go. Not everyone is strong. You won’t be part of our ministry.”

“So what will I be?”

“That’s up to you. You wouldn’t be part of our ministry anymore.”

“You know. I always thought that I could come to you and talk to you like a friend and like a mom and a Sheppard but after this conversation I don’t know that I’ll ever really be able to trust you that way again.”

“Fine.”
Click!

That my friends, is a conversation that I’m going to have etched into my mind for the rest of my life and I wish it wasn’t. Why do you ask? Because really, for all intents and purposes for the last ten years, this has been my family. I don’t speak to my own family because of the mind games that they play. Now I’m staring down the barrel of something eerily similar happening here. So now I question myself and my ability to communicate with others.

Really should this be happening?

It appear that the well being of my child is in question when I come near him since I abuse him so badly.

I realize that my life is my own but that I have to answer for my actions in the long run. That there’s Someone up above that’s watching my decisions and seeing if I lead people astray and if I bring them closer to Him. This, however, this is something that I’m just looking at in complete disbelief.

People are flawed. God’s people even more so. He calls the flawed to Him. I know this for I am flawed like no one else but I can’t really sit here and rethink what I felt yesterday morning after a conversation like that. I really can’t.