After talking to the caregivers about what would be in the best
interest of these children, I went out to talk to the parents. I didn’t know
what to expect. I had made the mother cry at our initial hearing when asking
how 4 of her 6 children had come to be positive themselves for
methamphetamines. She cursed my legal liaison afterwards, while in the office
for a visit, confusing her for me.
There wasn’t any love lost between us. And it was hard for
me to be compassionate for her as I had witnessed, a number of times, the trauma
to her oldest child as she had to leave each week the younger siblings who were
in a different foster home than her. The silent tears running down her face.
Her joyful cries of “Oh baby!” as she saw the little ones each week.
It was so hard for me to understand how the hold that
methamphetamines had on this mother could be stronger than the love she had for
these precious children.
These children who cried and grieved because their mother
didn’t love them enough, couldn’t love them enough, to let that love win over
that drug hold.
As I started to explain to her and her husband the limitations
on being able to visit with her children, and the provisions of the
termination, she began to get upset. Very upset. And her husband told her she didn’t
need to cause a scene. Her response to him was “I can’t help it, I’m just emotional.
This is hard.”
Suddenly, I didn’t see her anymore as a person who wasn’t
doing everything she could possibly do to get her kids back. As a person who was
dirty, and unkempt, with spots on her clothes, her hands shaking. I didn’t see
her as the person who had borne these 6 beautiful children and then chosen
drugs over them instead. I saw her as a person in pain. I saw her as a person
grieving. I saw her as a person who loved her children but didn’t know how to
love them the way that they needed to be loved and whose heart was breaking because
she knew it.
I looked at her and I said, “It’s okay. You’re right,
this is emotional. It’s okay to feel your feelings. It’s okay.”
And suddenly she stopped shaking so hard. Because I took the
time to see her heart.
As we went over the relinquishment paperwork, she kept
saying how she loved the children but she knew that they were better where they
were than they were with her. The children’s attorney and I both told her how
selfless her actions were, and how they showed how much she truly did love
them. And we meant it, because it was true. And we encouraged her and her
husband to get help for themselves so that when these precious children came to
look for them one day, they would find them healthy and whole.
I walked them down to the DA’s office to have their
paperwork witnessed and notarized. She kept putting her pen to the paper and
lifting it back up again. I can’t imagine how hard it was to sign her name to
those pages that would mean she was giving up her children forever. I told her
to take her time, that it was okay.
When she finally signed the papers, she looked at me and she
said, “Thank you for being kind to me. People usually just treat us as addicts
rather than humans.”
I felt humbled and ashamed. Because I have been guilty of
that myself.
As we walked back upstairs to court, she continued beating
herself up over the fact that she had not been able to get herself together to
get her kids back, until I finally stopped her. I looked at her and I said, “Look,
life is hard. And you’re doing the best you can. And some days that best is
better than other days. You just have to give yourself some grace and try again
tomorrow.”
As we stood in the well of the court, taking the actions
that needed to be taken to finalize the termination of their parental rights, I
tried to be as gentle as I could be to them, recognizing the sacrifice that
they had just made.
As I left the courthouse, I thought about how much better I
felt because I had been kind to these people in their brokenness than I would
have felt had I been harsh or judgmental or mean.
After court, I talked to my pastor about what was happening
with the United Methodist Church general conference, and in that conversation,
I told her my experience with the mother that morning. I commented about how it
can be so hard sometimes in this cruel world to be kind to people. Her response
was that being kind really was the best way to heal both others and ourselves.
The afternoon went on, and the tenor of the judgment,
harshness, and ignorance in the United Methodist Church general conference
increased, and the thoughts of that mom were replaced with anger and sadness and grief
over the decisions being made to minimize the dignity of the LGBTQ+ community
within the church.
I didn’t think of that mom again until waking up this
morning. In my grief and sadness over all the events of yesterday, I thought of
my abject disappointment with the global Methodist Church. And wallowing in my
grief, I thought of the mother from yesterday. And suddenly I realized how
alike that mother and the church actually were.
That mother loves her children, without doubt. But the hold
that meth has on her is stronger than that love. The hold that meth has on her
has caused damage to those children so severe that they may never fully
recover. The hold that meth has on her has caused those children to be
traumatized again and again, through the loss of their parents, the loss of
their siblings, the loss of their home. The hold that meth has on her has
caused a complete and total lack of felt safety for these children, as they struggle
each day with knowing what their future will be, what further loss they will
suffer. The hold that meth has on her has caused these children to go through
these past months feeling as if they were different from everyone else in their
schools and in their communities and in their churches, like they had nowhere
they fully belonged. The hold that meth has on her has caused these children to
feel like they weren’t enough for anyone, including their mother, and like they
had no place they were truly safe, including with their mother, the one place
where they should have felt safer than anywhere else. The one place where they
should have had the softest landing.
Those are the consequences of the destruction for these
children caused when the hold that meth has on that mother is stronger than the
love that she has for them.
The same is true of the church when the hold that bad and
hurtful doctrine has on the church is stronger than the love that the church
has for God’s children.
That church loves God’s children, without doubt. But the hold
that bad and hurtful doctrine has on her is stronger than that love. The hold
that bad and hurtful doctrine has on her has caused damage to God’s children so
severe that they may never fully recover. The hold that bad and hurtful
doctrine has on her has caused God’s children to be traumatized again and
again, through the loss of their non-affirming parents, the loss of their non-affirming
pastors and church members, the loss of their church home. The hold that bad
and hurtful doctrine has on her has caused a complete and total lack of felt
safety for God’s children, as they struggle each day with knowing what their
future will be, what further loss they will suffer. The hold that bad and
hurtful doctrine has on her has caused God’s children to go through their lives
feeling as if they were different from everyone else in their schools and in
their communities and in their churches, like they had nowhere they fully
belonged. The hold that bad and hurtful doctrine has on her has caused these
children to feel like they weren’t enough for anyone, including their church, and
like they had no place they were truly safe, including their church, the one
place where they should have felt safer than anywhere else. The one place where
they should have had the softest landing.
And as my heart breaks for that mom for the loss that she
has suffered because of the hold that meth has on her, my heart breaks as well
for the church for the great loss they are suffering because of the hold on
them of bad and hurtful doctrine.
As much as it is my instinct to be angry with the church,
I try instead to step back, as I did with that mother, and look not at the hurt
that its children are feeling, but at the hurt the church itself is feeling.
Not just at the loss of God’s children of the church that was supposed to love
them above all else, but at the loss of the church of the joy and honor of
watching these precious and cherished and beloved children of God grow into who
they were meant to be as loved and affirmed and celebrated children of God.
I try to look at the church, as I did that mother and see
not its hurtful actions, but its heart.
I try to look at the church and see not the institution that
is choosing bad and painful doctrine over God’s children, but instead as an
institution in pain. I see it as an institution grieving the loss. I see it as
an institution who loves her children but doesn’t know how to love them the way
that they need to be loved and whose heart is breaking because it knows it.
As I consider that love, I encourage the church, like that
mother, to get help for itself, so that when these precious children come to
look for it one day, if they come to look for it one day, they would find it
healthy and whole.
These children who cried and grieved because their church
didn’t love them enough, couldn’t love them enough, to let that love win over
that bad and hurtful doctrinal hold.
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