Zoe- breath of God

Hi Zoe,

I've been meaning to write this letter for awhile...sometimes letters help us express ourselves better because there's no immediate reaction to a message , you can read, meditate and  later reread a letter to understand where the writer is coming from without the harsh and emotional back and forth that sometimes comes out of a conversation. Sometimes in a conversation, people miss the heart of the matter. So for this reason, letters are ideal.

I'll start off  by saying this: #1 I love you.
And I, more than most everyone in this world, want your life to be full of meaning and  joy, and for you to have an  ability to overcome struggles.

In life, there are struggles....its a seemingly unfortunate reality of our humanity. Some people face struggles early on in life, some later. But the great secret is this: These struggles can make us into some seriously awesome people...struggles build character, perseverance, humility, strength...an ability to endure. Struggles in life in essence , and if you allow them, build up your character as an individual in this world. This isn't always the case for everyone though. Some people struggle and live as perpetual victims of life's trials...and the weariness from that battle is evident in their life. I believe the choice is ours in how we choose to respond to struggles. we can either buckle under them until they press us to death...or we can head into them face first knowing that when we emerge on the other side...we'll be more refined and better than we were going into the storm. A struggle in life is a blessing in disguise. It's provides a way to refine you from a lump of black coal into a brilliant and tested gem.

In my life, my struggles came early and lasted for several years. I, very much like you, suffered from social anxiety and a lack of confidence. Primarily, this was an effect of being raised in an unstable environment with a busy single mother and an absent father. Families are inherently designed to build healthy emotionally stable children. This doesn't always happen obviously as you can see. But, generally a home with a stable mother and father working together  produces the most advantageous results for children in terms of emotional stability and confidence. Now obviously in a broken world, there are always other factors at play that can disrupt this...but in general this is the case.

So as you can imagine, I missed that critical foundation as a child between the ages of  birth and 18 just as you have. In my life, the outcome manifested itself in a variety of ways. Very low confidence or "self esteem"...I did not understand my worth. Social anxiety, feeling awkward and terrified while with other people, especially in peer groups or later in work situations. Eating disorders including bulimia and anorexia, and major depression that went from the age of 12 until 30. Some of those symptoms led me into further disorders. The social anxiety I combatted with drug use and drinking...I felt a need to prove myself.  This began by just participating with the other people in recreational drug use because it was fun...funny things would happen...we would all laugh and it quieted my anxiety. In a sense, it was relief from my anxiety....although it was still there...not quite "cured" but suppressed at times. So I did MORE drugs, and became MORE extreme and wild. I was given confidence... my identity being molded as a free spirit who didn't conform to the same boring rules everyone else did. The wild and fun things we did were a great distraction from the depression I'd felt. Although again, my exploits may have distracted me from my underlying problems...they never exactly cured them...they were still there lurking in me waiting to rear their ugly heads when life quieted down. I made sure it never quieted down. Intermittently during this time when I would try and quiet down and live "normally"...like in my first year away at college....things were okay for awhile, but then reality kicked in and I crashed...all my hidden & suppressed problems welling up to the surface. I ended up trying to commit suicide when I was 19.

When I failed at that, and I still had no cure...I went right back to what did work...I went on an east coast road trip with a friend. It was one of the most fun and memorable times of my life. That trip ended when my second year of college began, I started selling drugs, I had a problem stealing that snowballed and got me into more trouble. I ended up drinking in the local bar and doing cocaine with my professors more than I was studying and going to classes. My friends were fascinated by my crazy stories...but my life was a train derailed. I finished the year as a cokehead who walked around campus with a backpack full of mushrooms, ecstasy, sheets of acid and bags  of cocaine. I decided I would go on Phish tour and drop out of school. That's the summer I met your dad.

More craziness carried on for the next few years...the stuff that people generally write books about. My mom wanted me to come back to Detroit and drive a bus...there was no way in hell I was ever coming back to Detroit to  drive a bus! lol. I honestly in my creative and adventurous mind thought I would end up on a vegan papaya farm in Hawaii at the end of my journey. That didn't happen. I ended up more of an emotional and unstable mess than I had ever been. I was pregnant at 20 and had an abortion. I was very "pro- choice" when I had the abortion and everyone I knew had abortions. At the time I didn't think there was anything wrong abortion...it was legal and I bought the lie that if you didn't have the means to provide you were better off killing your child!.I wasn't really prepared for the emotional scarring that choice would have in my life in the months that followed. If I wasn't messed up enough already, that was nearly the nail in the coffin for me.

A few months later, I was pregnant again...with you...."Zoe" which means "breath of God" in Greek. In some ways, I imagine subconsciously I wanted to be pregnant again to reverse the thing that I couldn't live with...the fact that I ended a life. I had a desire that welled up inside me to make a beautiful life for you...completely different than the one I'd had. I was only 21 years old when you were born...I barely had a nickel to my name and I didn't have the first clue how to raise a child! But I had a desire to take care of the precious life that was given to me. I read books on babies, took classes...some of that prepares you a little...but what prepares you the most is the love that God pours into a new mom for her children. Its an amazing thing that's truly indescribable.
I think I spent your first 6 months life just staring at you in awe of you! You were and are such an amazing human! You were truly my best friend who I wanted to share the world with. I still didn't have a clue, but what a time of Grace and love I had with you those first few years.

Struggles were there and increased in nature as you know. By the time I was 25, Miles was a baby and I was a divorced single mom with 2 amazing little ones, no local  family, no college education, no money but a desire still to make life beautiful for us. I worked 2 jobs to pay rent. I went though the hard trials like you experience today with people at your work. Certain people just not liking you, judging you, getting fired...all that hard stuff that makes you just want to go home and cry yourself to sleep. I still had depression, it was never cured and it just manifested into something greater and bigger than I ever imagined it could. It was debilitating. Had I not had you and Miles depending on me, I probably would have just ended my life.

I was, in my mind,....a perpetual victim. Life was so hard...Internally, I blamed my mom and absent dad for not giving me the stability I needed as a child and really just felt sorry for myself. I looked around and saw happy people and happy families and just felt sorry for us that we didn't have that.  I was so broken.There was a day I was so heartbroken and depressed and feeling sorry for myself I was just saying to myself "why me! why is MY life SO hard...I feel like I'm being picked on" I felt like I had been dealt an unfair hand in life. I was driving in my car on my way to work when this happened...for the first time in my life I "heard" God speak..its hard to describe but its like an audible voice that speaks through your heart. He actually answered my question "why me"...He said "Because I love You" that made no sense to me as you might understand...in my confusion to His answer he continued "I love you and I'm making you into a warrior" That was it...that's all he said. But that profoundly changed me and the way I looked at my suffering.   Sometimes I would go to church and listen...I think I visited every church in Grand haven, but I honestly just felt too broken and dirty to be there...so it never stuck. I'd read a lot of the bible but didn't really get It, even tough in my mind I understood it better than the people who went to church!  I thought Christians were judgmental hypocrites and they didn't really know Jesus. I barely knew Jesus myself but this didn't stop my from judging the church. I became pretty prideful in my opposition to Christians proudly proclaiming myself as a universalist and agnostic. I became good friends  with Ian Lawton who was the antichristian leader of c3 in spring Lake.

Like I said, I tackled my suffering ...I went back to college and my confidence stated to build. It was built in myself...I was prideful for what I accomplished in such tough circumstances. I still had depression and a host of issues but I could suppress them with pride in self..at least publicly. Inside I still missed the building blocks that makes a person whole.

When I was 31 and pregnant with Darby & Cooper, I was in charge of my life! And it was still a mess! Although I thought I had done well..I finished college, I found a job, I found a husband, I saved enough money to buy a house...Notice a theme? I, I, I, I. What a terrible leader I was.That's when God sent Jen Wagenmaker  to me...to humble my ass, lol. I thought she was an unintelligent bible thumper. She believed Jesus was the ONLY way. Well, obviously I was more enlightened than she was and not so narrow minded. My God she liked sarah palin after all!  I had no idea I was in the midst of a miracle completely orchestrated by my true father...who had tracked me for many years...even in my foolishness and hostility against the church that he loved. In that year, he truly got a hold of my heart and STARTED healing me from the inside out. It started with humility. I knew I had been leading my life and doing a terrible job...I decided to give Him the reigns.Not that I haven't wrestled with Him to get them back over the last 8 years...I surely do that still!  What choice did I have then? My marriage was ugly, my parenting skills were atrocious, my twins were showing signs of  autism...I was wrecked .  He has changed my life into something I never imagined was even possible. I never imagined I could have so much freedom from anxiety, depression and poverty. I never imagined he could take a girl like me with no healthy foundation in childhood...a true Hot mess and turn me into a champion who knows her value and worth. For me...that value doesn't come from me proving myself to anybody. Its not based on what I've done. Its based on God...what He has done and who He says I am.

I can assure you I am still far from perfect...and I well recognize that more than you think. And I realize you are angry that I have not been an ideal parent ...and that you feel I don't give you what you need or needed all these years  to feel "whole" and healed. You do need healing Zoe...nobody knows this more than me because I also needed healing. I know I will never live up to what you need from me. The best thing I could ever give to you is my testimony that I know the source of healing, because I've experienced it for myself! I know firsthand that no amount of money, relationships, education, travel, wild experiences, antidepressants, careers, or intellectualism will heal you...as hard as you try to prove yourself...those anxieties, depressions in your life ...they may be suppressed...but they're never really cured. And I know firsthand that the LAST place you ever want to go for healing happens to also be the ONLY place that  gives TRUE healing. Its the lamest  and most unpopular place where the hypocrites hang out...ugh...it is the LAST place on earth you want to be...I know that. But for me..at the foot of the cross is where I laid in a gurney having open heart surgery by a God who was the Physician...the Mighty Counselor as scripture calls him both! Its all I know...and that's why its the answer to every question you ask me! I know that is exceeding annoying! I completely realize that. But I also know that NO other answer will ever compare...so it will always be my answer. And for me, the healing and work God does in me is not complete...He is still working on me, I am TOTALLY under construction still. There is great progress, but its an ongoing process. So I will likely continue to fail you and fall short of what you want me to be. And I hope you can also be gracious and forgiving of me as I walk through life.

I won't have all the answers in life...no one ever does. God does...that's it.

Finally, I hope you can forgive me...and God for choosing me as your mom. You are right! I have been a FAR from perfect parent, and you and Miles have not had an ideal childhood. Primarily because of my sin and foolishness in life. I tried, I failed, I tried again...and still try and fail  today. I need forgiveness specifically for how I treated you when I was stressed and depressed  and my own life was falling apart...I demanded too much from you when you were suffering yourself. Frustrated that I created such havoc in our environment, I expected too much from you...and you unraveled yourself. Its quite understandable that you would rebel in the way you did.

 If I could change anything, it would be this: I would have believed and trusted God before you were born...I would have had more wisdom in how to raise kids and in life in general. But that didn't happen, and I can't change that. But I don't have to because God is bigger than all of it and with His help we can all overcome the worst of circumstances. He brings people back from the dead, nothing is too hard or out of reach for him, NOT.ONE.THING. As Jesus himself said "With God, ALL things are possible"

You are loved, you are valuable, you are more precious than you know....if you gain nothing else from this...at least digest that truth!