Having a Place that Feels like Home

Today, I was really hit with a sense of thankfulness.  As, a child in the early eighties and late seventies, I was the only kid in class that had parents that were not married.  Now, by late elementary it was sadly soon becoming the norm.  As a child, I never understood why the kids were so upset and crushed as their parents divorced. I always chalked it up, that because my parents were always separated I did not know anything else. So I was the blessed broken home kid.

Well, 35 years and a fried egg sandwich later, God presents the epiphany of the gift I has given to protect me, I had a home.  More like I had a sense of home.  My sense of home was with my grandparents.

Grandpa and I

My situation was the fact that my mom and I lived with her parents and my dad had remarried and was progressing with his family.  For reasons I do not comprehend, but lean heavily towards the fact that I was seen more as an commodity of my mothers, I was not allowed to live under my father's headship in his home.  In my entire life as a child, it was my father's house that resembled a home, never my mother's house.

In the life of uncertainty, especially from a baby to a tween, I had a safe, dependable place and that was with my grandparents.  In a life with a single mom, it was my grandpa that got me ready for school and it was him who I came home to.  He made sure I did my homework.  It was also him, who threw me in the pool first thing in the morning when I had a crabby attitude.  Note to self, should get a pool.  It was my grandma and grandpa that I ate dinner with and learned to have manners at the table.  It was the two of them, that I crawled between when I couldn't sleep at night.  It is with them, that I keep all of my normal everyday life memories with.

Sadly, even though it was my mother who I had custody with, she is not in any part of my before tween years memories of life.  In fact, the very few memories I have with her, are most times hurtful and isolated pain. Well, anyway.

What I realized today was that my grandparents did an amazing job protecting me from the ugliness of broken homes.  The ugliness of parents try to upper hand each other.  I was protected.  I never once had a thought that I didn't have a home, especially while I was sorting out the emotions that I did not have a sense of home at either parent's house, I always had a refuge to run to, my grandma and grandpa.

Today, as a parent, I am thankful for the parenting model I received from them.  They gave me a great foundation to be a parent and to make a home.  They were not always perfect, but they were perfect for my needs at the time. I am so glad that they let the Lord lead them to be what I needed them to be.