the family tree

hola senors! i am going to have to learn spanish for my new educational endeavors so i might as well go ahead and start to use it. i'm really excited right now because i'm thinking of how much fun it's going to be to do the journalism thing at uc. don't get me wrong, i'm scared to death to do this. i think i'll be the oldest student there. still, this fits me. i've been so embarrassed of myself and what i really like. so scared to let people see my writings because if they don't like it then i am afraid i will feel like they are rejecting me. plus i kept thinking i know so many people who are good writers, odds have to be that i am not. but like your mom said, God has given me these words to write and i need to write them. my job is not to compare and contrast myself to others. my job is to go with what God has given me and let Him use me in the ways He has picked out for me, not anyone else i know, ME. despite being really excited about school i wanted to write about something serious, maybe even a little sad. sorry, i wish i could just talk about fun things in life but life isn't always fun and i want to be real with you boys about our history so that you are not doomed to repeat it. plus i want you guys to understand why i am who i am. obviously i am not expecting you guys to read this stuff now, you are 6, pretty much 5 and 18 months. this is too much for you right now and although kobe could read it you other two would be out of luck. i'm not sure how old you will be when you do read it all. i hope this is not the first time you will learn about this stuff. i hope by the time you read these, you will be older and able to discuss this stuff with us openly. i don't want to dwell on the bad things in my life, rather i am finding myself at a point in life where i am fascinated with how i have subconsciously coped with things. it's kind of like the older i get, the more i step away and see my life as a movie that i can watch and kind of look at a lot of it with more introspection and critique and not so much emotional outpour. is that good or bad? i don't know. why don't i explain more what i'm talking about and we can decide afterwards whether i'm better or worse?
your mom and uncle nate and uncle matt and i have had an interesting life, i think. we were the preacher's kids for most of our lives at this point. i guess we'll reach an age when it will just be part and not a majority. weird. anyway, being preacher's kids is good and bad. we got a lot of attention and presents and pies and foods and hand-me-downs from the people in the church. we also got a lot of criticism and a lot of expectations. since we always lived in small towns, it was more like the whole family was up at the pulpit every sunday and wednesday nights and not just papa lewis up there. now i know you aren't going to believe me when i tell you papa lewis was a preacher. none of you know him that way. i don't know what you will remember about papa lewis since we don't spend as much time as we would all like to with him but he certainly isn't a preacher anymore. in a lot of ways, i don't feel like he's anything like he was while we were growing up. anyway, i'm not lying. he was a preacher. i thought he was a good one. i can't speak for your mom or matt or nate. my memories of him are either sitting in the chair in the evening snoring and watching tv or preaching and preparing for services around the church. i remember one light blue suit he would wear and i always thought he was like mark twain standing up there in that suit and preaching. i don't know why i thought that, i guess it's the missouri connection and the light suit. who knows. i was proud of him though. i was proud of our preacher family. i felt honored to be part of it. while some people asked me if it meant i was closer to God (i wish), i really thought of it more as having more access to the backstage of a concert. if that makes any sense. i think all of that made it even harder for me to "see" what was going on and definitely harder to deal with. before i get to what was really going on, i want to describe grandma judy.
my memories of grandma judy are actually pretty good for the most part. i have the occasional memory of fights we had and punishments and rules that i thought were unnecessary but i'm sure she would say the some thing from the other side. but my interpretation of her is not at all what she would say. i remember thinking she had beautiful hair and clothes and jewelry. i remember thinking she had a pretty face. i remember her being bigger than she really was because she was always carrying on about her weight. if you look at pictures she was normal and not fat, not near as fat as i thought she was because she would fret over it so much. she would always say how she didn't take a good picture and she was not as pretty or skinny as she should be. her pictures from that time expose her though. she was beautiful and she was charming. the church people always loved her. she was so sweet to them and so supportive. she loved them and every church should be so lucky to have such a loving preacher's wife. she still speaks so fondly of her preacher's wife life. if i could change anything in life, i would move her back to one of our churches in that warm small town church and let her live all her days there, loving and being loved. she invested so much in them. how many saturdays we would complain because she would practice piano while we were trying to watch something. how many times she would accompany the special music. how many rolls she made for church dinners. how many women's club events did she do. how many really unique and i think incredible christmas card programs. nothing went down at church that we didn't have a part in. i mean yeah, we were always late to church but were were always there. she worked full time and had a family with four kids but she still managed to be a part of that sweet community. i think i took it for granted as much as anyone else. it wasn't until more recently that i have been to get what she did. i work full time and have 1 child, no husband, no three other kids, and i can't bear the thought of doing anything other than catching up with the housework and resting. i really have no idea how she did it all and with such grace. again, she would never admit that she did it with grace. well i don't care how she was feeling on the inside, it only matters how you carry it out and she carried it out with style and grace. she really was an amazing person. which i think is why it makes it so hard to deal with how things are now. i think it's probably what i feel is the greatest loss in our story.
now, let me tell you what happened. this will be a small sampling of the big picture. i hope you get the gist of what i'm saying. like i said, i hope we will be able to have more in depth conversations about it. i'm sure your mom and nate and matt would have other memories of papa lewis and grandma judy. i know their perspectives would show you different sides to our family life that i totally missed. this is only from my point of view. what i saw was a strong, charismatic preacher and his loving and gentle wife. what i chose to ignore was the dark side of our life. i guess it was because i only saw their more guarded appearances that i was so afraid of them. i was scared to death of getting in trouble with them. i didn't realize that my dad's strong outward appearance was hiding a weak and beaten man. he was a man trying to hide many secrets. i didn't realize that my mom's extreme desire to fix things for my dad and her desperate lack of self-esteem had planted seeds of depression and deterioration. even though i can look back and see the first growth of those seeds, it took years for the weeds to be seen for what they were.
now to the four of us. i would say for siblings, we are tighter than most. growing up, there was a weird mix of being in this together but trying to outshine the others. i would often accuse matt of being the owner of various bad things when it turned out they were my dad's. but when he was in trouble, i would feel bad for him. i couldn't stand that your mom was smarter and prettier and all around better than me. but i would follow her everywhere she would let me. nate was the cute baby of the family and i thought he always got away with more and got more than the rest of us. but i loved playing with him and watching cartoons with him. i always considered him to be my play friend. since we tend to be on our best behavior in public, it leaves our private lives at home to deal with the crap of our worst. it was in our home that i have my worst memories. memories of fights and weird visits from in-laws. it was at home, in my room, that i remember feeling my worst. it was at home that i did too much to stay out of trouble with my parents. wishing my mom would come home and rescue me but being equally terrified that she would come home and see what was going on. our home was full of shame. the worst part of shame is the secrecy it drives you to. that shame and secrecy decayed our family from the inside out. it's why papa lewis hasn't been a preacher for 13 years. it's why grandma judy lost a lot of herself, her sparkle and shine. it's why your mom and uncle matt and uncle nate and i have been so broken. but it's also why we have been so close. we went through a lot together and it has taken a long time to get through it. but we would never be so special to each other if we hadn't lost so much together.
once again i'm ending hoping your lives don't lead you through so much hurt but realizing that already all three of you have had hard times. please don't let these times harden you. don't let these times control you and drive your lives. take a big lesson from my book and don't do anything in reaction to these hard times. most definitely don't think these hard times are proof that God does not love you. that was my biggest mistake. i felt unworthy and left out. but i was wrong. God loves us even harder when we are going through those horrible moments that break us. He is right there begging for us to come to Him for unconditional, healing love. i hid in my shame from the only thing that could break the secrecy and the shame. DO NOT FOLLOW ME TO THAT HIDING PLACE. it is full of lies and heavy darkness. pour your shame out to God and let the light of the truth bring you to growth and healing. as scary as the truth can be, the shame is worst. the shame is always going to be more dangerous. i hope, i hope, i hope with every inch of me that you will all feel safe to talk to your mom and to me. do not be afraid of us. even more, do not be afraid of God.
our Father, who art in heaven, i come to you now with a grateful smile at what you and i have gone through together. i thank you for the healing and growth you have loved me through. i am sorry for ever believing the lies. i am sorry for making decisions based on those lies instead of your truth. thank you for blessing us all with moments when we can be at our best. thank you for loving us when we are at our worst. please help matt and wendy and nate and me to make a life and home of happy and safe memories for kobe and lincoln and abel. please help us to keep the shame away from our home, away from their sweet spirits. please help us to remember to pray for the lies to be blocked from their ears and their minds and their hearts. help us to be living examples of your truth. help us to love them into strong men who love You. turn this weak and beaten soul into a strong woman who loves You. AMEN