Time to move on…

It has come to a point where I feel I need to change churches, or at least not attend the one that me and my family helped start and had been going to for the past 4 years or so.  Most of you know my whole mess of a life (since the end of April 2009)

Link to the blog about it - http://supersjbroaddus.xanga.com/700908997/how-much-is-too-much-when-should-i-give-up%e2%80%a6/

We’ve stayed at our church because I love the people at my church. Many of them have read our blogs and have checked in and supported us through this. Our family sacrificed and invested a lot of time, hard work, and care into helping to launch the church. But times of crisis have a way of revealing things about leadership. 

No one is perfect, I understand that, and this was a huge crisis that no one was prepared to handle.  Mistakes were made and I pray everyone will learn from this situation. I thought I could stay so that we could learn and grow through all of this together, so that the next couple that has to deal with this type of sin issue wouldn’t have to go through the same hardship that we went through. But at some point you have to say enough already. 

I needed more from my church and I just don’t think they were equipped to help me.  After the affair came out, I felt like everything that helped me heal I was told not to do.  But me leaving the church mostly boils down to they (the pastor and elders) have kept and still keeps pushing for the other woman to come back to the church. I am told that I need to forgive the other woman and let her come back to the church or at least give a date that she may come back. Forgiveness takes time, it’s a process that I have to work through, I felt like I was being made to feel like a bad Christian for not being able to do so faster.

The big deal is because our church is 30 – 40 people tops, so how would you avoid certain people in such a small setting? I also don't think they realize the depth of the deception of her betrayal of my friendship either.  She’s being portrayed as this innocent person manipulated by Maurice, with everyone seeming to forget how much manipulating she did the last 3 ½ years. Even sitting between me and Maurice at church like it was nothing. Why would I want her around Maurice again? He doesn’t need to be near her anytime soon. It’s not helping him move forward in life. It won’t help her move forward in life either. It definitely won’t help me move forward in life. Why would I want my kids near her again? Why should I feel like I need to leave because of her? She won my husband over for 3 ½ years of my marriage, so why should she win the church over too? Why don’t they understand how much pain this is causing me?

I know one day I will get to a place of forgiveness of her, but it’s too soon. It’s too soon to have my husband near her again. Forgiveness is a process and it takes time to do. I am slowly working on forgiving both Lauren and Maurice. If you have doubts about it, she still lives and I haven’t laid a finger on her to harm her, now that is a miracle in itself. That is me attempting to forgive her, granted we haven’t met face to face either. Heck, I haven’t harmed Maurice either. I have yelled at, stormed off from, but not harmed him. Though I’ve had many deep dark thoughts about it. (he knows, I’ve told him about them)

Does anyone realize that just because I am still with Maurice, it doesn’t mean I have forgiven him. I am slowly getting there with him too. Most have said “How are you still with him?” or the others have said “Leave him” and others “Why haven’t you kicked him out yet?” I have a very few friends telling me that “It’s good you are staying with Maurice” I understand that if I can forgive one, I can forgive the other (though understand, I have a life, a history, and children with Maurice). The push for me to accept the other woman back is so very strange and hard to take!

Anyways, there are several other issues I have with the church, too, the biggest being the clever word play about how he was never a leader there. Me and the church will never see eye to eye on this topic either, it’s so very frustrating. It feels like they have spit in our face. I don’t want to go into the whole story about this, but just know that I can’t stay there.

I do wish them all well, I will miss many of the people there, however I plan on staying in contact with many of them. I hope they grow and become a great church. I just know I can not and will not be there anymore. It’s very hard for me to even say that, because I will miss my church.

I am fine now or more like on the right path to being fine.  I am finally, this past month, back to feeling like my normal self, it’s like a weight has been lifted off of me, (I think our trip to Vegas really helped us as a couple) and I have actually rekindled / remembered why I like being around Maurice (most times – ha!), but it only came after I was dealing with many hard situations on my own. I figured things out the hard way, on my own or with Maurice’s help (and with a couple key girlfriends that helped along the way – I love my girlfriends!).

Most of this year has been hard to deal with. I wasn’t sure I was going to stay married or not. There were several times that I was sure we were going to be divorced by the end of the week.(even just about a month ago) But we are on the right path, we have found a smoother road to travel on. We are working on our marriage together. He is putting in a lot of effort and work, so I think we are going to make it.

So to keep things going in the right direction, it is time to move on and start fresh at another church. Not to hide from our situation, or the mess Maurice created in our marriage (all the churches we are considering already know the situation), but to move forward together without stumbling backwards into the same mud hole again. It’s time we make the decisions that are going to help us focus on and make ourselves, our marriage, our kids, and our faith stronger.

Please continue to pray for us.  May God be with us and with the decisions we are making.

Sally

PS - I have a new favorite song, I just heard it yesterday and then found it on-line. 

Warning: there are some cuss words in it, so if you are sensitive to bad words, you might not want to click on it - since the lyrics are also printed on the screen

Kaci Battaglia - Crazy Possessive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCSacPajs2g&feature=related

My boys are little ladies men......

Ok so my boys are cute, I know it , Maurice knows it,  they know it, I think everyone kind of knows it. Especially the girls at the school know it. Since two of them keep calling for my youngest Malcolm (he's only in 2nd grade) and last year Reese was getting all the calls, do you know that some of them called Reese for a conference call (with 4 way calling with 4 of them on the line talking to each other) I am not joking. (it starts so young now a days)

So since several girls have been calling and leaving messages for Malcolm this year (grant it, one wants him to be in her super secret spy club - she is whispering it on our answering machine - so very cute) I started letting him call the girls back.... my boys don't know anything about talking on a phone. So I made them a cheat sheet on how to make a phone call. (grant it thier cheat sheet has their name and phone number filled in) I'm going to laminate this card for them to have around the house. Here it is:

When making a Phone Calls

If someone answers:

Can I speak to ____________________?

If they are not home… Say:

Can you please let _____________ know that ________ called. I will try to call back at another time. Thank You.

If you get a voicemail / answering machine:

This is _________________.
I’m calling for ___________________.
Can you please call me back at _______ Thank You.
Once again this is _________ calling for ________ and my number is _________.

Hard lessons of Life.....

Reese learned a hard lesson of life tonight, he's been bugging me for weeks to build a playhouse, he kept saying let's go get some wood from Menards or Home Depot and build one, he said he'd buy the wood. I of course laughed and said sure you buy the wood I'll build it.

So I was out running a few errands (trying to get stuff to finish the scrapbook for my mom) and I took Reese along. So we stopped into Home Depot, he made me write down the cost of 2 x 4's and 6 x8 Plywood and then he wanted to look at carpet and paint for his playhouse and I told him not to forget the screws. So we wrote down the cost of everything. Then he wanted to look at flowers and chairs to decorate this club house with.... I told him hold on, slow down, I am not promising we are making this thing. Plus we first need to worry about the cost of building it before we even think about decorations.

So we wrote down all the costs of everything we could think of. Then tonight I looked up some blueprints of a clubhouse. Yes I know, I usually just make up my own blueprints but I thought I'd save a little time and math work by just using someone else's plans tonight. Especially since I know we don't have the money to make a clubhouse so why do all the math for something I am not going to be able the make in real life.

http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-build-a-deluxe-playhouse/index.html#step1

so I started sketching out some of what we need to buy and how much will it be. It was giving me a headache so I didn't want to do it all tonight, but Reese kept bugging me to figure out how much stuff is, and since he saw the 2 x 4's cost anywhere from $1.89 to $2.75 each. he thinks it's still affordable, Reese doesn't understand that you need many of these and that adds up after awhile.

So I drafted what the floor and only the floor would cost which is $38.06

Then told him how much it was going to cost to carpet it... which he was set on this carpet by the foot, instead of the precut carpet that was $30. Which he said the one I picked wasn't comfortable, he needed the plush soft kind. Which breaks down to be $85.44 to carpet his clubhouse. So Reese is a little sticker shell shocked right now and he said yeah let's go with the carpet you picked mom.

I told him I am done for tonight, and it will take a long time to save up that kind of money. So we will save talking about the grand plans of making a clubhouse for another day. I told him over all to make the clubhouse will be $250 - $500 and he was upset that things cost so much.... truthfully I am too.

Reese has big plan is to make a two story tall clubhouse. Ah to be able to dream big as a kid... I wish I could give him the clubhouse of his dreams, but the reality is it just isn't going to happen. It hard to watch your child as he has high hopes about things in life and then reality sets in and they see the big picture of life. You can't have it all, it's not a easy as it seems, and it's hard to save up money for the things you really want.

I figured it's better to let him think through some of the cost of things rather than for me to just say "no you can't have a clubhouse" or "no we can't afford a club house for you." So now he sees the reality of it. Life is expensive and you have to work hard for what you want in life. Set a goal and work toward achieving that goal.... now he knows the cost, now he has to decide if he's going to start saving his money toward achieving that clubhouse or if he just wants to blow his money at the Dollar tree or Walmart on toys and/or candy.

The tooth fairy is a Lie.............

Ok Reese lost his other front tooth the other day......

he said "There is no such thing as a Tooth Fairy!"

long pause from me

he said to me "Just give me the $1, come on, just give it to me"

I told him "What do you mean?"

He said "I know it's you! It's parents all over the world doing it."

Boo! I liked being the tooth Fairy.... so I quickly said "OK so now you know, no more getting money for your teeth."

Malcolm answered back "No wait, I only lost 1 tooth so far, I still believe in the tooth fairy!! Mom be my tooth fairy"

So I agreed to do it still.

Here's my toothless Reese (4 teeth missing right now, 2 on top and 2 on bottom, he looks like a real hillbilly right now)

Ain't he cute.... well I think so!!