here''s your sign.

My mom and I watched the tail end of A Time to Kill tonight. During a climatic scene where the KKK held signs of hate and ignorance my mom says, "there's your sign riki".
I knew instantly what she meant. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, but I'll never think intentionally naming ur children KKK is funny. at all. so there was my sign. dumb riki, dumb. I think I rationalized it/chalked is up as "oh they don't really mean it, again, there way of just being 'funny'. yeah. funny. a group of people who killed, tortured, and brought fear to another group of people who looked different than themselves. dumb riki.

This is seemingly random and I got no good transition (ok that poor grammar was purposeful), I get that parenthood is really really hard, I also get that it's just gonna get harder. My days of comforting a daughter with cuddles, crackers and the occasional glass of chocolate milk is seemingly growing shorter. She (and therefore little he) will be faced with more and more the older they get.

I was told, "I don't know why he is doing what he's doing that certainly wasn't how he was raised". Really? Now, I want to be careful. Days of rebellion I'm sure are to come. But I don't care if my babies are 6 or 28, I will always do everything I can to encourage godliness, kindness, and self-lessness in my children. I watched some silly wedding story-ish show awhile back. I can't remember the exact show, but the families of the bride and groom had (separately) been interviewed. The father of the groom said something on the lines of, "you make your home and if you come back here saying things aren't working out I'll send your ass back home and make things work". Good man. Look, I can guarantee (future) daughter and son-in-law that I will always choose wanting godliness and living up to their responsibilities over doing what makes me feel better. DIL & SIL I am promising you now that I will want (and live accordingly) that I want the very best for you and your (maybe someday) babies.
Another crappy segway...
So when my daughter comes home saying things like, "I wish Uncle Neal was my daddy" or breaks down somewhat randomly right before her bus comes and wails, "I don't know why daddy doesn't want to be a family"....yeah or after yet another day with him that he can't take the time to spend with just them, and she says, "mommy, I know you'll always be my mommy, but maybe you can marry another boy and he can be my daddy!". that, doesn't fly well. Those are things that should never becoming out of my babies mouth. Knowing that the way she views her dad, is the way she'll view her heavenly Father. And everytime I hug on her and tell her how much I love her...and well quite frankly i got nothing good to tell her. and as she gets older and asks more Q I really don't know how to answer her...I refuse to lie to her and yet I'm making the choice to keep my mouth shut too...but as she gets older I have no idea what to tell her...bc it wasn't this 'opps one or two time booboo'...I can't exactly say it was a day one thing into marriage thing, that would be an exaggeration...more of a day  289 in (give or take a few). I am so so sick of lies, and deceit. so tired. and seeing those lies and deceit bring brokenness unto my daughter, brokenness that she never ever needed to feel or experience at the hands of people who were too scared to prevent those things for her (and little him). that makes me mad. that infuriates me. I know how to be a good mom. not perfect, but good. And I know the right, baptisty, biblical response. "Give it to God, Just Pray." Don't you see your part in all this? While I know those things in and of themselves are true, I'm also tired of folks who use those responses as essentially excuses to doing the right thing. and the right thing, friend, very seldom the easily thing; actually i can think of very few times when it is.
What I want her to know is that I love her. and that she has a heavenly Father who loves her even more so than I could ever. That He will never, never leave her. That He is a God who not only says He loves her, but that he gave His own life for her. That she accepts Him as her Lord and Savior, and not just at an early age so that she can essentially 'do and live how ever the H she wants to...but said the sinner's pray so I can sleep better at night'. But that she learns to draw close to Him, learns to know and love her Creator, her Savior, her Friend in intimate ways, NOT just with empty, futile words. May God give me the patience, endurance, and love to be the example of both mama and dad. amen.