WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Today’s post is of a rather personal nature.

I was driving home from a friend’s house today, when I felt a desire to ask my daughter a question. The question went something like this, “So…do you have anything going on right now in your heart that’s been bugging you, anything that keeps coming back even though you try not to think about it?”

To my amazement, she said yes. She told me her mom and her step-dad are having financial problems, and fighting because her step-dad’s ex wife is taking them back to court to get more money. She told me they can’t really afford a lawyer, and can’t afford to give her more money. The reason she wants more money, apparently, is because she wants to send her daughter to a private school that costs $400 a month. Regardless of the reasons, my daughter is worried and anxious over it all, continuously. Not only that, but she has to be around sometimes when my former wife and her husband fight.

I just sort of immediately went into this mode I have, where if something is bothering, or could be a danger to my daughter, I get very cynical, and angry inside. I wanted to call, or write to this woman, and tell her what her choices were doing to my daughter.

I understand that she is not in a good position, and was hurt in the exact same way I was when her husband left her for my wife. But the comparison stops there, really. Since all that happened, she has been very vengeful and spiteful; doing anything she can to hurt those two. I truly understand this, but I am fed up with my daughter being caught in the middle, and I wonder if I shouldn’t gently remind her that Ally IS in the middle.

I would like to tell her that when she tries to hurt them, she also hurts my daughter, only right now, I really want to do it in a way that isn’t loving, or gentle. I want to lash out, and use these words to hurt, and throw darts. Why must my daughter be hurt for the rest of her life because the adults in her life are such assholes? Tell me, what one thing has she ever done to them? When is enough enough?

So, am I supposed to just sit here and let it happen again? This is an ongoing thing, and I am not a pacifist, despite my faith. Am I to allow my daughter to learn how to be abused, and harmed, and to think that for the rest of her life, this is how things are supposed to be? When do I get to act on her behalf, without other Christians saying, “Oh, Tom, you need to be calm, and speak the truth in love.” I don't want to be calm!!

Here also is the truth spoken in love, “You white washed tombs, you brood of vipers,” or how about, “Woe to you teachers of the law and scribes, you travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”? I am supposed to ask what Jesus would do? Maybe he’d say those things! How do we know?

Jesus certainly was not JUST love. He was not ONLY nice. He attacked, and kept the Pharisees on the defensive almost from the word go. His was a righteous cause, because his children were being harmed by the Pharisees. Is that the case here? Am I to react strongly because my child is being harmed by adults who act more like children than she does? IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS OF THIS!!

I don’t know if I can do it any longer. I don’t know if I can sit by and watch quietly, as if I am not allowed to protect my daughter. I am sick of it all, and thinking very strongly that something needs to be done that will put an end to this stuff. Maybe reacting strongly will do it, I don’t know. What I do know is, something has to change. You can’t keep hurting a father’s little girl, and not expect to get hurt back. I guess that’s how I feel right now.