Words Parents Never Wish to Hear

* Please Note : This blog post is very personal to me. I have prayed about this for many days, and feel led to share an intimate part of my life with others, but I also want to protect other peoples privacy. I am not someone who likes to air their dirty laundry, but also I do not like to put on a happy face when there are things God is working on in me.
When you become a parent there are certain things that you fear and want to protect your child from, and you say from day one what you would do in those situations. One of those situations you as a parent always say..... "If someone was to touch my child, I would ......." You are thinking it in your head right now. What happens though when your child comes to you and tells you that someone you knew did something to them? At that moment your world shatters; your bubble you created for your family has now popped. I know this because it happened to me.
As a parent you never want to even imagine something like that happening to your child, but when you are faced with it, what do you do? Who do you call? Where do you turn? These are all things I had to figure out, places I never wanted to know about, people I hoped to never meet.
I am telling my side of the story because I know sadly it is not uncommon. I am so thankful that God granted me to go numb, I couldn't process things well unless I could shut everything out and just focus on being there for my child and making all the calls and appointments I needed to. The second thing I needed to do was tell my husband. That was a conversation, I wish never existed between us.
Next came all the investigations and interviews. All my children were subjected to questioning, I was questioned, my parenting was questioned, my choices questioned. Talk about humbling!! I started questioning myself over everything and felt that I let my child down, I should have known this person was a monster. I wanted to lock the doors and close all the blinds and cuddle with my kids all next to me..... and we did just that.
Even through everything, I could see God's hand moving through our lives. He brought Derek home at the very time I could not go any farther. We needed time to be a whole family and to heal and to find peace.
One of the hardest things to work through, was the rage. That underlying feeling of knowing you could kill someone and sleep well at night afterwards. Never have I known so clearly, then the moment I was in the courthouse and had to see his face again. At that moment I knew. But even with the rage, I felt God's hand on my shoulder pulling me close to Him. He knew I was angry and hurt, and wanted revenge, but he also knew I needed peace, and love and forgiveness. Have I forgiven, no. Will I someday, yes.
I write this to show you that my life is in no way perfect, but to say I have a perfect God. And even with all the horrible things in my life, it does not compare to eternity with my Lord in Savior in Paradise. The second reason I write this is to tell everyone how truly proud I am of my daughter, for telling me the truth and sharing something so personal and horrible. To then say " I want to tell the police because I never want him to hurt another person." She is stronger then me, and I am glad. Because of her standing up and telling the authorities, they discovered he hurt another girl and he is currently behind bars awaiting his hearing.

She's back!!!

Time to get back into the blogging world. I miss recording our life adventures, our ups and downs. And I am sure people missing reading about them. Ha! 

We are now back on the mainland, in the great state of Missouri. Quite the change huh? Yeah, I was not expecting to enjoy it here as much as I have. 

Derek is now Chief Ganley. :) Very proud that he completed his Warrant Officer training even while suffering with meningitis. That was probably one of the scariest things I have witnessed. He is currently deployed to Afghanistan. Military life is never stagnant.

I am still homeschooling, now all the children (minus Zachary). I am much more laid back in years past. I want them to enjoy learning....chuckle.... We still have days of crying and yelling and complaining, and sometimes the kids do that as well. Ha!

I am not sure how long we will be here, my hope is a few more years at least.... I know right?! I dragged my feet for years about coming here, now I get depressed at leaving. Even when I have to worry about ticks, tornadoes and high heat, I think this is probably one of the happiest times of my life. I am blessed beyond words to be married to a man that still loves me after all these years, a family that supports me, kids that have some really great moments, fantastic friends, and a God that loves me every moment of every day. 

Although I can say that I am the happiest I have been, I can also say that I have had some major struggles, especially of late..... more on that later...... Can't wait to capture more of our family's moments for us to remember later down the road.