NOVOCAIN

NOVOCAIN

  • Single Parenting

NOVOCAIN

Novocain – drug used to decrease pain.

We all know what pain killers are and we gladly volunteer for it at the doctor’s office. It makes sense why someone would not want to endure a dental procedure without it. Why would you?

It also makes sense why people would want Novocain to dull the pain when going through a divorce, but I strongly encourage you to forgo the pain management and let it hurt.

Such unusual counsel, I know! Let me explain.

Novocain during a divorce looks like: sex, alcohol, shopping sprees, dressing revealing, chat rooms, porn sites, casual sex, social media addiction, endless eating, gambling, dressing like a teen, buying a sports car and on and on.

So why do I strongly encourage you to forgo the pain management and let it hurt? While those things may numb or dull your pain for the moment, when they wear off, the pain will only INCREASE! Some discomfort is meant to be felt SO THAT true healing can occur. If we walked around drugged all the time, we wouldn’t be able to discern when our fingers are touching a hot stove, or our stomach is producing pangs out of hunger.

Whatever pain you are feeling from your situation, it is there for a reason and God wants room and time to HEAL the pain, not just make it go away. Failure to do so means you will only carry the covered over pain into the next relationship and God bless the man or woman that touches that scab. It is why second marriages have such a low success rate.

The best thing you can do for yourself is let it hurt and get that pain all out. God will meet you as you seek Him. I promise you; it will not last forever. You are not trapped in pain forever. The enemy wants you to think that you are dying of emotional distress and therefore need to medicate your soul, but the truth is, the only way to lessen the pain is to FEEL IT.

I want to give testimony that the peace, joy, and wholeness on the other side is full of lush fruit one cannot birth through painkillers and numbing agents. I think one of the hardest things is to see your life partner moving on so quickly but trust me (oh, please trust me) when I say there is nothing to be jealous of when someone has to clean up another person’s mess. You are doing your heart, children, and future a massive favor by allowing the healing process to occur.

I am sorry for the pain you are feeling.

It is not okay that someone didn’t treat your heart the way God intended.

It makes me angry that you and your children are having to walk this out right now.

You deserve to be loved, honored and cherished.

LOOKING THROUGH GOD’S EYES

“You can’t. You are a single mom.” I will honor those involved by not sharing details, but I have been told this on more than one occasion over the years. The first time was when God called me to go on a mission trip. I had no desire to go, yet He began to speak to me so clearly that I gave Him my ‘yes,’ and within a week, all the funds came in. I was told, “There is no way God would call a single mom to go.” Those words stung! I beg to differ. Jesus always went after the weak, the sick, the broken, the least of these, and those overlooked. It isn’t the ‘less than’ part that qualifies a person. It is what Jesus does IN the weakness. Our weakness simply becomes the ground in which we are aware of our need for Him. No one needs to convince a solo parent (or their children) that God’s best is a family with both a mother and father, but it is incorrect to disqualify someone based on weakness alone. Judge them based on what God does through the weakness. Man may need a perfectly polished resume to qualify you, but God does not.

ENCOURAGEMENT

While you may be going through a change, it is a lie that you are alone. On this day, God calls you His. Anchor yourself daily in this truth.

Declare this out loud, “I am not alone. God is with me.” Say it again and again and again until the eyes of your heart get it.

Hosea 2:16 (NIV) – “In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’ you will no longer call me ‘my master.'”

Hosea 2:16 (MSG) – “At that time” – this is God’s Message still – “you’ll address me, ‘Dear husband!’ Never again will you address me, ‘My slave-master!’ I’ll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false-god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again.”

NOT ALONE

When I first began life as a single mom, I would wake in the middle of the night, totally paralyzed by anxiety. The best way to describe how I felt is to recall the scene from the movie Titanic when they were in the bottom cabin, and water began filling the room. They only had a tiny pocket of air left and were gasping for that last bit of air before they were fully submerged. That is how I felt, except I had four kids holding onto me, and none of them could swim. It was horrifying to consider which one I had to let go of because I couldn’t carry them all. Talk about horrible! One day, I couldn’t take the stress of being stressed any longer and faced my fear head-on. I realized that the verse in Jeremiah about His plans for a future and hope was my life verse (Jeremiah 29:11), but it also applied to the kids. At that moment, I realized I got five doses of that promise because my kids were minors and under my watch. I finally surrendered all of the panic, worry, and anxiety. I declared, “Father, if it is Your best will and plan for us to be homeless, then we will be the cutest homeless family standing on the corner with our signs.” I was quite serious at the time, and all I can say is that you would not believe the financial testimonies God has produced through our family. They are nothing short of miracles. Supernatural living was birthed through striving to rest in His goodness.

I WANT A PHD!

When we first became a solo family, I was concerned about how my young children would view men. God began to highlight certain men to us; one was good at loving his wife, another was super funny, and another was great at connecting with his children. Some were models to us far away, and others became the hands and feet of Jesus to us. I began to call out certain character traits in each of the men to my children, and we created a phrase, “They are a Purple Heart Dad.” Years later, we were writing out our prayers for the year, and my daughter, who has received many prophetic words about the medical field, wrote down, “I want to a Ph.D.,” which I assumed meant a medical degree. Months after praying for her Ph.D., we realized she meant Purple Heart Dad. To this day, we use this expression almost weekly as we see men being incredible examples of kindness, love, servanthood, protection, joy, wisdom, strength, etc. God has given us so many incredible men who have stood in the gap and shown us God’s heart for a man, father, husband, and friend.

HEART SPLINTERS

Have you ever taken a splinter out of a child’s finger? You surely do not want to do it in public! They yell and scream and act like you are cutting off their finger. But once it is out, they run off and play like nothing happened.

Have you ever tried to remove a heart splinter that has been stuck for years and years from an adult? While they may have a smile on their face, they will protect that wounded site at all costs. Even attempting to touch it will cause pain, as the tiny splinter now has a blanket of inflammation and infection around it. Can you see the difference between how a child deals with the pain versus a grown adult?

Childhood hurts can turn into adult-sized wounds. Childhood lies can turn into adult strongholds. Childhood offenses can turn into adult bitterness.

The goal is to remove the owie before it becomes a life-threatening spiritual wound! This deserves a loud, “AMEN!”

What does a child with a splinter in their heart look like? They act out, scream, yell, disobey, pinch, hit, kick, cause trouble with siblings, have nightmares, cry, are rude, are mean and are disrespectful! This is why it is so vital to raise up parents who can discern what is going on beneath the surface of their child’s outbursts. You are the one who knows what is normal for your child. You are the one who knows when they are acting out from being hungry, tired, or when it appears “out of the blue”. You have known their cry since they were first ushered into your arms. You are the one God entrusted to listen to them. You are their mama/daddy, their advocate, their teacher and helper!

Not all of their ‘bad’ behavior deserves discipline. Sometimes it is their heart screaming in pain and they need compassion and tenderness.

TRIGGERS ARE YOUR FRIENDS

Your spouse was only half of the problem. Your response to their unloving ways is what God wants to reveal and heal so that you do not take it with you in your future. Please read that sentence again.

You might not like hearing this; neither did I. But it ended up being one of the greatest GIFTS and I want to give that gift to you.

Your triggers are your friends!

I knew my husband was dead wrong (I could even prove it in the Bible). But my responses to him were over the top (“above average,” as my pastor liked to say). I soon realized that if Jesus were married to my husband, HE would be able to respond in love and peace no matter what He was doing. This revelation didn’t make me feel condemned for not being perfect. Instead, it made me realize how UN-like Jesus I really was, and I hungered to be more like Him.

A mentor friend so graciously told me, “Lisa, every time he sends you to the moon (in anger), use that to go after healing in your heart.” I did just that. He would trigger me, and I would sit with Jesus to find the root of why that was a sore spot for me. I would pull the root, if so to speak, and my reaction was less and less the next time he did the same behavior. Soon I began to see myself unaffected by his less-than-kind choices. There is such power in becoming healed, and we can use those trigger points in our favor to help usher us in greater healing and wholeness.

STAY IN THE FRYING PAN

Staying in the frying pan. This is probably one of the most challenging things for a person walking through the ache and pain of a divorce, but one of the most essential. God meets us in these places like no other seasons. It is where the bitter becomes sweet, the pain turns into joy and mourning turns into the morning.

LYING TO YOURSELF

One of my daughters was working through some stuff with her father and made the decision not to connect with him when the opportunity presented itself. It is a hard dance to know how to parent a child with heart splinters, when to push, and when to take your hands off. I asked God for help, and it came to me while worshiping in church. I embraced her and shared with her what He told me. God commands you to honor your father but wants you to know that part of honoring your father is staying true to your heart and not lying about your process. While I cannot encourage her to keep this wall between her and him, she has come a long way from being the girl with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. She has fought hard to be honest with herself about how she feels, and the fact she was setting a boundary for her heart was a good thing. It is a sign that she is no longer willing to lie to herself for someone else’s profit. God is proud of her for the hard heart work she has done over the years to be fully alive. She sat down with tears streaming down her face. In all honesty, the parts that hurt her the most about her relationship with him are the parts of him that are so shut down and unable to engage. She realized at that moment that God healed her of the very thing in him. Part of honoring our mother and father is becoming the fullest expression of who God made us to be!