It has taken me a while to absorb what happened a month ago... and realize that everything is fine now, nothing bad is going to happen. I finally feel like I can move on.
I was at home with my children, going about my normal day when someone knocked at the door. There was a woman from DHS here asking to come in to talk to me and my children, there had been a phone call Monday afternoon filing a claim of abuse on my behalf, and she needed to investigate. I immediately knew who it was who had filled the false claim and tried to explain to the woman what was going on. She simply informed me that she had the right to pursed the investigation simply because that phone call was made, regardless if it was true or false.
She asked me a few questions about my parenting. I did not lie. I told her that I spanked my children with a wooden spoon. She was horrified. So stupidly I became defensive and tried to explain myself "hands are for loving not hitting". To which SHE became defensive because that is what her ENTIRE discipline approach is based on "don't use anything but your hands to discipline your child"
So being more and more flustered and attacked I made a royal mess out of everything. She spoke to the children alone and when I came back in the house she was writing her case against me. She had plenty of things written down: I let the children ride their bikes without helmets (on our driveway and back patio??? puleeeezzzzz) I LET them cut themselves on Davids razor (acted as if I actually did the cutting myself) etc etc...
Thank you Lord for sending David home on his lunch break!!!! He is so good with people... he wasn't flustered at all. This was right up his line of business. HE is the one who usually gets referalls FROM the DHS workers. HE is the one who FIXES these truely abussive parents, teaching them classes, evaluating them and such... That woman had quite the nerve talking to him the way she did. But he gave me the look of "just be quiet Amanda" so I pretty much did, tried anyway...
She explained that from the feel she got already of our family, she wanted to check the children for bruises. So the three of us took each child one by one aside and quickly looked them over. On the first child, she snapped at me "SEE THERE IS A BRUISE RIGHT THERE ALREADY!!!" and I calmly walked over to him, licked my thumb wiped the scar and stretched the skin replied, "that is a scar... its been there a month... it will still be there a month from now." To which she calmed down slightly. Thank you God there weren't anymore bruises anywhere on them, I can just imagine what she would have done! My children are BOYS! they usually have a bruise somewhere.. Isaiah has one on his forehead right now for goodness sakes.
She excused her self and said she would be returning....
This is my point.... My mind FILLED TO OVERFLOWING with fear of loosing them. David said calmly after she left that by her reaction and the falsness she was writing down he was PRETTY sure I would be arested if not both of us!!!!
We had planned on going camping that weekend, but David said if I wanted to leave right then and there he was fine with that (wednesday evening) So my sweet sister and I packed up real quick and headed out. I had a battle going on in my heart... IT WAS JUST ME FACING THE EVIL, AND GOD WAS WATCHING.... where was I going to put my heart?
I was angry at first, denying, defensive, HATRED, pure hatred at the person who had made this claim. The only thing that soothed that angry from striking them back was David's orderd to exclued them from our lives, that they are not to be anywhere near me or my children again.
Then I clamed down... I realized God was still there and that if I was angry and defensive I must be guilty of something. So I dug down and realized that I was guilty indeed, guilty of not doing my BEST with my children. Not spending enough time with them, getting snappy and frusterated at them, lowering my standards of being a wonderful mother... I have sacraficed SO much of my life and put it into my children. I fight a DAILY battle at keeping my house PURE of the world, protecting my children... That recently I had been feeling like I was THE ONLY ONE ALIVE WHO WAS DOING THIS.!!!!!! THE ONLY ONE!!!!!! I felt so lost and alone.... silly but I was looking out on this world thinking, if I put all this time, love, energy into my children, raise them into WONDERFUL God fearing men... they are going to be SO SO SO VERY LONELY.... there are no good boys left out there whom they can be friends with, there are no good little girls out there whom they can choose a wife... WHY AM I DOING THIS.. and I felt like I was about to give up and slack hard at my job...
... instead God was trying to tell me something. That I am unique, set apart from the world. I am not anything like anybody who is NORMAL or REGULAR. My boys have a LOT going for them! I feel like God was telling me they were EXTRA SPECIAL, that he has a plan for them. He wanted to used them for something HUGE in this world. He needed me to do my job, do it well and do it with every last drop of blood in me. HE NEEDED ME. So I concluded that this lady did not come to take my children from me, really what was happening was Satan was trying to hurt me or my children through an angry person. But God was watching and waiting for my heart to learn a lesson, to "get in the right place" and he was going to protect me. So I did what I believe he wanted me to do, " I told God I was going to keep on to the end". That I hadn't come this far for nothing. I wanted to see the end result, the reward he had in store, the wonderful plans he has for my boys...
A short while later, David got ahold of the lady, she came to our house for the "follow up." It was a completely different story. She was very nice and polite. Informed us that she usually doesn't sit down with people to give them there results but she wanted to with us. To let us know that she was closing the case as "UNFOUNDED" !!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I went from thinking I was going to get locked up for nothing to she found nothing at all!!! And she was being realllllly nice. She just wanted to let us know "I think you have some really great children, and I want to let you know that you need to try harder to love them" was the jest of the message I got. And I was like (that's exactly what I thought you were trying to say all along God, thank you for this confirmation, I needed to hear it out loud to make sure I wasn't making this whole thing up )
That's it case closed.... Love the boys, take care of them, try my hardest every moment of every day, drenching them in smiles and adoration.... I'm glad I took the time to write this so I can remain focused!!! Amen!!!
PS I have been involved with HELPING DHS for a few years and they are usually helpful people with good intentions. I meant no disrespect to the woman in this article, I felt like it only had to do with my heart only and no one else's, she was just the tool that was used to teach me this lesson...
It was nap
These are the spectacular ice cream cakes that I made for Isaiah's birthday party. I searched around a lot on the internet but couldn't find a recipe that I liked exactly, so I sorta made this up. It turned out wonderful. The sliced picture above is another cake made with butterfinger crust which we made a few days ago because we liked the cake so much and poor Isaiah was so distracted at his party that he didn't get a piece of cake himself. So of course we made another one for him the next day...
Above are the two finished cakes.
Above is my mess as I make the cakes.
