Goodbyes

Confession: This post has been sitting as a draft for almost six months because I haven't had the emotional energy to dwell on this subject (goodbyes). Although I've known I wanted to tackle it for some time, I also wanted to write it from a peaceful frame of mind and it's taken awhile to get there.

With the recent passing of The Sheepfold's founder, Fran Lundquist, I have been spending more time thinking of the thousands of women who must have walked through The Sheepfold's doors over the past 30+ years. Just in my short time working here I have known, loved, guided, served, and been blessed by at least 30 women and 50+ children. Some stayed just a few weeks, others months, and some even a year. That's just at my house, not including the hundreds of women I've met at the Sheepfold's other shelter houses and alumni gatherings. As I have written here before, domestic violence does not effect one demographic more than another. We have young women and old women, of all faith backgrounds, race,  levels of education, and job history. Their children are just as different. No mother or child is the same.

Each and every mom that I've met has a story. Most of them heartbreaking, some angering, others amusing, even a few that seemed downright unbelievable. In the time that a family stays with us you get to know them in a very intimate way. You see them on their best and worst days...when they need to vent or cry as well as get advice, have a light bulb moment, or share a blessing. I have loved every child and every mom, even the difficult ones. Loving them is easier than I would have thought, but saying goodbye is a hundred times more difficult than I could have anticipated. I have cried so many tears over the goodbyes that I now expect it and prepare myself for it when I can. The past 6 months have been about learning how to depend on God for the strength to reach out to a new mom immediately following the departure of another.

Let me explain that when I talk about goodbyes I am not meaning a traditional farewell that we have when a friend or family member moves away. Sometimes moms leave because they are graduating to our 2nd Step apartments and other times it's because they've been employed at a fantastic job and have saved enough money to move out on their own. These are GREAT reasons to say goodbye!

Yay for you, on to bigger and better things!

Those kind of goodbyes are my favorite kind, although sometimes there's still a tear or two shed. But these are not the kind of goodbyes that are so hard for me to write about. When I say goodbye I mean my mental and emotional goodbye. My letting go and moving on when some things will forever be unresolved. Alright, deep breath.

This is my peaceful place...thank you God for the ocean!

There are four kinds of difficult goodbyes that I have experienced here on more than one occasion. The first of which is when we have to ask a mom to leave because of a spirit of rebellion...usually meaning she has lied to us and hid her true actions or intentions over something serious. Working in a safe house that is also a structured program means that we have some unique rules for the sake of safety and learning self-sufficiency. These rules are given to each resident before they decide to come to us and there is a copy in every room. Some of the things that moms have hid (or attempted to hide) while in our shelter were drug and/or alcohol use, ongoing child abuse, staying in contact with abusers, having a boyfriend or a "sugar daddy," and hiding or hoarding money. When a mom does this she is usually rebelling against someone or something. It's easy to tell by her attitude when it comes to light whether or not she can benefit from remaining in the shelter any longer.

For the record, we don't turn moms out on the street if she is asked to leave. We help them find another shelter or pay for a hotel for a few days until they can find another option. A lot of the time a mom will have put up walls and so many lies to cover up her deception that she is sick, angry, and exhausted by the time it comes to light. If a mom is unwilling to change or accept responsibility then she is not ready to move forward. I hate this! I hate having to watch a mom leave who has so much potential in her to be better and to break the cycle of abuse for her and her children. To watch moms choose their vices over their childrens' safety or even their own, breaks my heart.

A mom left us once because she was purposely dressing her children poorly to make them look homeless so that she could get money on the side that she wouldn't be accountable for. She would take her kids out (in Winter) with no jackets and maybe one sock and dirty faces. She would purposely leave behind all the items we had given her and her children to meet their needs. Another mom met a man on the street and got him to pick them up in a town car that came right to the house. After she had gone, as I was cleaning and sanitizing her room, I opened up a drawer to find she had left all her 5 yr old son's toys behind...his little treasures. Selfish decisions like this are so hard to watch because it is the children who end up suffering! These women were broken and hurting, used to living their life a certain way and unable to see anything different in their future.

The second goodbye is when a mom has not utilized the help we have given her to gain independence (employment/education) and has stayed the full time allotted. This isn't such a bad reason for a mom to leave. She has worked the program in so much as she has made some progress and done what she was required to do, but also not demonstrating any real maturity toward self-dependence. Examples of this were moms that decided not to go to school or only put minimal effort into finding gainful employment. Others were those that had goals of getting their GED or Driver's License but never actually took the steps towards doing it.
Sometimes this is due to a deep-rooted fear of failure and in those cases we work very carefully with them to try to instill value and get them the resources they need to build their confidence (tutors, counseling, resume classes, etc). This one frustrates me more than pains me because I want them to succeed so badly! I want them to know that they are capable of doing so much more than they give themselves credit for!! Many times these women have never had a single person in their life who made them feel valued or had any kind of expectation for them. These goodbyes are hard because it feels like there is so much left undone.

The third goodbye is when a mom is afraid to change so much that she decides to go back to family or friends who were a crutch to her previously, essentially giving up on herself and independence. Sometimes a mom will return to her previous life, especially if she has been homeless for a long time. Some women have become so used to living in transitional housing or jumping from one friend's couch to another that they push back against anything that hints at change. These moms frequently come into the shelter gushing how grateful they are to be here and how this was their last chance to make something of themselves...but after their first 30 days when they are required to begin the process of independence they find it too hard and don't want to accept any of our help. One example of this was a mom who only had one child. She was so fearful of change in every area of her life that she refused to potty train her 5 yr old son which prevented her from looking for work or starting school because he had to be potty trained before he could be in school. He was so old that he actually changed his own diapers...and he was at an age where he will most likely remember doing that! Another mom had left her family because of a verbally abusive alcoholic father. She believed that her child would remain with her 24/7 for years and refused to put her down to do anything for herself...even to take a shower or sleep. When we suggested anything at all...even if she herself solicited the advice...she would say that just wasn't applicable for her and her child. Ultimately after weeks of trying to help her adjust to her growing child's needs she decided to return home because she was so uncomfortable with change.

The fourth goodbye is the hardest for me. It is when a mom comes to believe her abuser has truly changed or repented and goes back to him. This one makes my heart ache. I know that current statistics state that a woman will leave her abuser 7 times before it is for good...but it is so hard to witness that happening and not be able to do anything about it! I had one such experience a few months ago that stands out above all the others because it was the only instance where I had actually met her abuser. Usually these guys are just a faceless entity when a mom is telling me her story, but this time it was different. This time I sat in court and watched him instill fear into our mom from across the room. I heard him calmly address the judge with concern in his voice as he told her that his wife was a danger to their child and that he wanted to help her get some kind of assistance. I also heard him try to get the judge to disclose his wife's location and heard him make an appeal for why he needed to have his gun back. He had reduced this beautiful, funny, gifted woman sitting next to me to a shivering pile of nerves. A month later he changed his tactics and withdrew his request for a restraining order against her. He met with her pastor to tell him that he wanted to take marriage counseling. He gave her a list of all the changes he wanted to make. He had his mother contact her and she told our mom that he had been hospitalized because this "whole mess is making him sick" and that if she would only come back to the family she would see that "he really has changed." She went back to him. The "changes" didn't last more than a couple months...and now she's pregnant with his second child. Another one of our moms who was 6 months pregnant left us to return to him as well. Even though the physical abuse had occurred WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT she believed she would be better off with him than raising two kids alone. Oh and this guy used to punch her in the face while she was pregnant and holding her sleeping toddler son. This goodbye is so very, very, difficult.

Now that you know all the things that make what I do a challenge I hope I can leave you with something that is not such a downer. All of the above goodbyes stink... it's awful and that's pretty much all you can say. But here's the part that gives me the strength to keep loving and keep serving.
I am not the one that brought these moms to The Sheepfold.
I am not the one who is pursuing them with an unfathomable depth of love and grace.
I am not the one who sees and understands the future.
I am not the one who brings about healing.
I am not the one who can change hearts.
I am not the one who makes all things new.
I am not the one who heals.
I am not. But He is.
No matter how short a mother and child's stay is with us, I know that they were here for a reason. No time is wasted and no one comes to The Sheepfold by coincidence. No one. Someday, at some future point in time, that mother or child will be in a different frame of mind. The things that they saw, felt, experienced...they matter. God does not stop pursuing us just because we're not pursuing Him.

As I was writing this post I received an email from a former resident who left our program early. She wrote me to let me know she was able to finish school and that she wishes she had stayed with us longer. Her words were full of love and gratitude...not just to me and my fellow managers...but more importantly to God, for what He has brought her through and how He has been faithful.

So I am still learning how to go from one of these goodbyes to saying hello to a new mother and child, but it's getting easier. It's easier because I realize that my job is to love, encourage, value, challenge, and be available to these families. But they are not mine and so I hold them with open palms, grateful to be entrusted with them for however long I can. God is good, all the time.

"Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings." Psalm 61:1-4