Sometimes I can gauge the temperature of the Blue Monarch community before I even walk in the door. Maybe I find women laughing together on the front porch. Or perhaps I hear them worshiping to praise music booming in the great room. Other times I simply take a quick look around the room to assess the expressions on all the faces and it’s difficult to make eye contact or find a smile. “Oh no. It’s one of those days...”
I’ve often wondered if we should post one of those charts they have in hospital rooms to measure pain – but in our case, to measure how well one is getting along with others today.
Honestly, the atmosphere at Blue Monarch can some days feel like a pressure cooker with almost 20 women living in community. And let’s add some fuel to the fire and throw their children into the mix. Boom!
“They’re talking about me behind my back.”
“She has no right to correct my child when she doesn’t even have custody of her own yet.”
“I believe she’s eating my food.”
Some of this is normal and expected. That’s why we hold weekly Family Meetings – to hash out disagreements and frustrations in a healthy, constructive way. But during the holidays the sensitivity of the entire group escalates to a level I would describe as “raw.” Yes, that’s it. Everyone is walking around with extremely raw feelings and emotions.
For all the other months of the year, we can try to ignore the obvious things missing in our families that make them less than perfect. But my word, during the holidays those issues rise to the surface and light up like a flashing neon sign. We can no longer ignore what’s lacking because it is amplified in every Christmas display, every song on the radio, and every silly car with a reindeer’s nose on the bumper. Each day brings yet another painful reminder of what’s absent in our ideal world. After all, our family members can bring us the greatest joy or the greatest pain.
I’m often reminded of the popular Norman Rockwell painting of a lovely family gathering where everyone at the table looks happy and engaged. The sweet-faced grandmother is serving a larger-than-life-sized turkey, perfectly seasoned, I’m sure. But honestly, how many families really look like that? Seriously, Norman? Did they still look like that the next year? For those of us who truly have special moments and memories like that, I hope we never take them for granted.
For the families represented at Blue Monarch, however, I can confidently say less than 10% of the almost 1,000 women and children we have served have ever enjoyed a family holiday that was anything close to the one portrayed by Rockwell. In fact, I have heard heartbreaking stories of family get-togethers that ended in ugly violence causing emotional scars and terrible trauma. Harsh words. Christmas presents thrown into the yard or no gifts at all. Black eyes and broken bones. Families torn apart. Christmases behind bars. Raw, raw hurt.
But here’s the thing. They still want what’s in the Norman Rockwell painting.
“I just miss my family,” is something I have heard hundreds of times, usually through lots of tears and sobbing. But it’s not because they can’t see their relatives for Christmas because many do. I think they are grieving a family they never had. They miss THAT family. The one Norman Rockwell illustrated.
We often see a woman go through a gradual, painful process during the holidays. Her family members begin to look differently to her through the eyes of someone sober. After exposure to healthy behavior at Blue Monarch, the dangers her family present become more obvious. Perhaps her children are not safe in their presence, which is a hard thing to admit. Maybe someone in her family will do something that threatens her recovery and might even offer her drugs because in his or her world, that’s a gift of sorts. If the woman is paying attention, she will eventually realize the grief is over a family she never had. And that’s tough to accept. After all, once she sees the truth, it’s impossible to unsee it and go back.
At Blue Monarch, we make a huge deal over Christmas. The kids go on exciting Christmas field trips with their moms, creating lifetime memories that we hope will be repeated one day. And my favorite – we treat the moms to a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant where they are encouraged to get dressed up, try new things, and order “whatever they want.” This evening always brings lots of belly laughs along with occasional tears of gratitude. It’s such a special night and we appreciate the sponsors who make this evening possible every year.
We have angel trees scattered across town and many generous people provide the items on the wish list for every woman and child we serve. The day they unwrap all their presents is nothing less than spectacular. Our staff works for hours sorting gifts into piles for each family and the moment the moms and kids crash through the doors and run to their stations – well, it’s exciting, extremely loud, chaotic, and often tearful as well – with more tears of gratefulness and joy.
I remember a boy last year, bless his heart, who suddenly stopped what he was doing and began crying. We assumed he was unhappy with a gift for some reason, or maybe another child had taken it. But with a quivering chin and big ole’ crocodile tears, he said, “I just can’t believe someone got this for me! It’s EXACTLY what I wanted!”
So, how do we shift from the season of raw hurt into a season of joy? Well, I can describe what happens because I have seen it hundreds of times.
Once a woman really grasps the reality of how much healthier and positive life can be, she shifts from being the child to being the mom. She lets go of the fantasy that her family will somehow become the family in the Rockwell painting, and she develops a new family with the other moms and kids at Blue Monarch – the very ones who irritate her from time to time. They create lasting friendships with each other that continue long after they leave Blue Monarch, and their kids continue to grow up together.
She embraces the connections she makes through Blue Monarch and develops a circle of friends and church family that will lift her up. She finds comfort in knowing she is permanently a part of our Blue Monarch family and can always call on us for help. And she sets healthy boundaries with her original family in order to maintain a safe relationship with them going forward.
She makes a promise to herself that her own children will not long for a healthy mom because they will already have one. Her kids will not grieve over a disappointing family gathering because she is determined to create holidays they will remember and cherish. And she does all of this as she becomes the super hero who will protect her children from the things that hurt her as a child.
In other words, SHE becomes what she never had. That’s what I call “yet another Christmas miracle.” And isn’t it amazing, the baby in the manger is the one that makes it happen every single year.
Thank you, Lord, that you have provided such a loving home for your children who are hurting. You are a good, good Father. Amen
