Could being a single parent actually be a gift?
No doubt feelings of void can leave you wondering if you’ve made the wrong choice. It can take some time to feel a sense of normalcy after a divorce. Being a single parent is without a doubt HARD, and that is not even the half of it. It’s so easy to find yourself in a pattern of day dreaming, to ease the loneliness that comes with this new life you chose.
Once you get used to the quiet house, you can see clearly enough to accept the gift, the hard gift, of single parenting. I often think back to the time I spent as a single mother, I thought those years would never end. First, in my parents’ home and eventually, in a little apartment. It was small, but perfect for my two children and myself. I had never lived on my own until that time. During that time I learned a lot, and it was my change of perspective that helped me to embrace my life as a single mother.
I did not need someone to protect me.
As many young girls do, I dreamed of the day I would find my prince charming. I would be swept off of my feet and protected. For me protection was the thing I craved the most in my girlish fantasies. But I didn’t need the protection I so longed for from a man, because I got it from God.
I built a safe haven for my children to return to.
I spent time making myself a strong and gentle role model for my children. I wanted them to learn that strength and gentleness go together. This was my home and I could make our new home whatever I wanted it to be. I adopted the verse “…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It was not easy, but as Abraham walked with God… I practiced walking with God. I began to learn to stand on my own two feet, and started to become who I wanted my children to be one day.
I grew in my time away from my children.
As my children spent a lot of time away from my home I made sure to spend my time growing. Had my children not been away for weeks and weeks at a time, I could have never done the deep healing work that it took me to become my own person again. What I thought was unfair (and felt like God was not doing anything), I was being given a gift, and I wouldn’t know it for years to come.
The way a single mother has to learn to manage life alone seems brutal. In many ways it is, but what if it is really a gift? Going from a family intact and then to separate homes, could leave anyone feeling a complete loss of hope. Please believe that it will not be like this forever. Healing and rebuilding come, it doesn’t seem quick enough, but they do come. One day you will wake up and see that this is the life you ached for.
