Star light; star bright

I have been wishing on stars lately. Wishing. Hoping. Worrying. But I know that I will not find answers in the stars...Unless I am following the Star. The right Star. The Star that led so many to the manger.

I have written, but not finished a half dozen posts. I do not have anything to say, but this I know is true. I need to really give this all up to God. I need to let go. It is the most difficult thing that I can do.

When I am in this "mode," I usually lash out and attack things that bother me. I am a "fixer." If things are wrong, I right them. If there is an injustice, I right it. If there is someone who needs a "dressing down," I give it.

I learned to be a fixer a long time ago; it is my survival skill. It is what my mind taught me to do because my childhood terrorist was beyond my control. I have had many adult terrorists, too. I have discussed this in depth many a time. But these are the things that molded the person that I have become.

Lately, I have been wanting to secede from my family. I want my family to just go away and leave me alone, which is very contradictory to what I have written before. I haven't seen most of them in years and years, but it is especially at times like these that I want them to be gone from my life.

I look for approval-especially from my father. I will never have it. Even though he has on a few occasions told me that he is proud of me, I know when he is not. Like when I call him and my mother on the telephone and my children are talking in the background or making too much noise. I can hear the disapproval in his voice. The "children should be seen and not heard" mentality. This has cost me many sleepless nights and tears, but it is what it is.

I really struggle with my need for parental approval because I would also like to dress-down my parents. I would like to voice my disapproval and disappointments. My irritations and dislikes.

Perhaps that is what P is struggling with now-to a degree. He wants and perhaps needs parental approval, but he also wants and needs his independence. I cannot give my approval for some of his actions, but I can tell him that I love him and always will-more now than ever. It is exactly in times of crisis that we should blanket our family in love. Surround them with a family hug...Even long distance.

I do not have to approve of P's actions, but that doesn't mean that I don't approve of or love him. That is a difficult lesson to teach a child. I see the difficulty that I have with Little Big Boy and Number One Daughter. It is hard to tell a child that what they have done is naughty, but that you still love them...Not because the words won't come, but because their hearts and minds are so fragile. Little Big Boy doesn't understand how I can be angry and still love him, but I keep trying to show him how it is possible. At three and six years old respectively, Little Big Boy and Number One Daughter need to know that I am always going to be there for them.

That is a very hard lesson to teach when P has been kicked out. The little ones do not know where P is or why he hasn't been here lately. Little Big Boy keeps saying, "I wish P was here." "I do, too," I say.

Once when P was about eight years old, he and G were traveling alone across the state. P looked at G and said, "When you are thinking about someone who isn't with you, do you think that they are thinking about you, too?" G replied that he did think that it is true. I have been thinking and praying a lot for P. I wonder if he has been thinking and praying a lot for me, too?

I saw him briefly this morning. I hugged him for a long minute and let him go with tears in my eyes. Then he said, "When is your next appointment with Kris?" I told him that I didn't have one; to which he replied, "If you make an appointment, I'll go with you." We are going to therapy on Friday morning.

It is true. When you are thinking about someone-they are thinking about you.

"O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).