Tears in the bucket

Growing up with an abusive alcoholic is like...



being a puzzle with missing pieces.

 You can ask everyone around you to halt and help you look for the missing pieces, but you'll never find them.   You fill in the empty spaces the best that you can, but you are always on a quest to find a better piece here or there, anywhere.    

ALWAYS ON A QUEST…

To cope with being the wife of an abusive alcoholic, my mom became a creature of habit.  She learned to control as many things around her that she could.  Almost everything in her life was out of control.  Routine gave the shambles of my mom's life something stable.  She could create it.  She could manipulate it.  She could master the discipline of it.   

AND MASTER THE DISCIPLINE OF ROUTINE...

SHE DID...

Every Friday night, while my father was hopping from bar to bar, my mom was at home washing toilets.   While my father was hopping from bed to bed and woman to woman, my mom was alone mopping the floor.

My mom was a hands and knees floor scrubber.  I can still see her hunched over on all fours methodically scrubbing with the old wooden scrub brush.  She would meticulously begin in the same corner of the kitchen every Friday night.  Back and forth she scrubbed.  She tried to scrub away her sorrows of wondering where her husband would be that night.  Who would be with him?  Would he make it home alive?  Would she get a call at 3:00 a.m. and have to pick him up from a bar, or a jail, or a hospital?  Would he come home at all?  Back and forth she scrubbed, constantly wiping the sweat from her brow.  Tears fell in that dirty old mop bucket.  Tears became the solution that cleaned our kitchen floor.  Tears drove my mom to wish her daughter a better life than she had. 

TEARS BECAME AN AVENUE FOR PRAYER... 

With each tear that fell in the bucket, my mom's heart cried out in prayer that her only child would have a better life than she had.  My mom's tears pleaded with God that He would somehow assemble the puzzle of my life that had severely damaged and missing pieces.  My mom prayed for rescue.  Escape.  Protection.  Guidance.  Help.   

EACH TEAR A PRAYER THAT THINGS WOULD BE DIFFERENT FOR ME.

Every Friday night, I think that old plastic bucket filled faster than it emptied.

  

AS TEARS BECAME PRAYERS...

PRAYERS BECAME HOPE...

My mom had a hope that my life would be better.  My mom had a hope that my broken puzzle could somehow be restored.    


MY MOM HAD HOPE, AND GOD HEARD HER TEAR-PRAYERS. 


 This is the life that my mom prayed for me.  Safety.  Love.  Faithfulness.  Security.  Strength.  Peace.  Tenderness.  Faith.  Light.

HER PRAYERS WERE HEARD...

AND ANSWERED...

THE TEARS OF HER OWN LIFE CAUSED PRAYERS OF HEALING TO FALL ON MINE...

THE TEARS IN THE BUCKET STILL CARRY ME...

THANKS MOM...