As I sat down to write this post, I honestly don’t know where to start.  So many things have been going on in the past few weeks and so much has been going through my mind that I feel like if I don’t write this slowly an explosion of words would assault your eyes.

Over the past few weeks, I have been dealing with a bit of anger.  One of my kids is going through a very difficult time and it is being exasperated by the fact that I couldn’t always be there to help since most days I am at work. .  I know I have talked about in the past, but I try very hard not to let anger at my situation get the best of me.  I try to take everything to God and ask him to help to see things from his perspective.  Lately, however, I am angry.  Angry because this is NOT how things should be.  So often in today’s society, adultery and divorce are looked at as normal.  It is no big deal and a woman like me is just supposed to get over it.  We are told face the facts, your husband doesn’t want you anymore so move on, forget about it. Marriage today is treated as a purchased item that if it doesn’t work the way you want it to or it is broken, we don’t try to fix it, we just throw it away and get a new one.  Since when is it ok to treat our spouse and our children like that?

Our society no longer looks at things like monogamy as normal.  In this hyper-sexualized society, we are encouraged to follow through on the lusts of our heart with no regard for what that will do to others.

I know I had mentioned that my church was doing a sermon series on the Ten Commandments.  Our pastor recently covered the 7th commandment….

“You shall not commit adultery.” Exodus 20:14

Our pastor did an awesome job with this and had many great points.  One of the points that stuck in my head was a quote that he used from Andy Stanley.  In an answer to a question about monogamy, this was a portion of his response….

“The value a culture places on monogamy determines the welfare of its women and children. Women and children do not fare well in societies that embrace polygamy or promiscuity. In the majority of cases, sexual freedom undermines the financial freedom of women. Sexual freedom eventually undermines the financial and emotional security of children.”  Andy Stanley

When I heard this statement, I wanted to scream out..EXACTLY!  Yes this is exactly true.  I have been dealing with this.  As a woman who worked from the time she was 15 years old and had a full-time career at the time that I got pregnant for our first child, I am no stranger to working.  However, my husband and I made the decision that I would be a stay-at-home mom and I resigned from my job where I had worked for the past 15 years.  I still worked, as any stay-at-home parent knows, that job, never ends.  I also did many extra things so that weekends could be spent together as a family rather than spent doing yard work.  When my husband left, I was left with all the bills that we had as a couple with half the income to pay them.  I had no job, because WE had made the decision for me to stay home. Not only was that very tough, but very scary as well.    How would I do this, what if I can’t afford my house? As I would make comments like that the response I often got was something like well just go get a job!  Like all these years I have been some lazy bum and now I better get off my butt and do some work!  I am sorry if that sounds harsh, but the truth is, this is a reality for far too many women and children.  Their emotional and financial security is suddenly ripped away from them because one person thinks that their sexual desires are more important than anything else. And the saddest thing is…OUR SOCIETY ENCOURAGES THIS BEHAVIOR!!!  We need look no further than the whole Ashley Madison scandal to see that.

So now you have children who suddenly had their family ripped apart, their dad(or mom) suddenly gone and now their other parent is going to be taken from them so that they can either go to work or work a second job to try to provide for them.  And we wonder why we have a society of teenagers on medication for anxiety and depression!  We have a society of kids who are emotionally insecure because they are alone, the are financially insecure because they have to watch their parent struggle to make ends meet and you can tell me all you want that kids shouldn’t worry about such things, but let me tell you they do no matter how much you try to reassure them.

I began writing this post a week or so ago and then for some reason didn’t finish.  As of yesterday I knew why.  Yesterday I found out that I would only be working for about another month at my job.  I knew going into it that it was a temporary position, but it turned into something much longer than originally thought and I have really gotten used to being there and the breathing room that it gave me financially.  Now I am back to square one with trying to find something that will provide for my family and still allow me to be there for my kids. I am in a tougher spot than before because I have added a car loan to the mix of bills I had before.  And honestly I am angry.  Angry that all of this falls on my shoulders.  This is not how it is supposed to be!