A Garden Filled with Weeds Cannot Thrive

I find it so funny, and all mom's know this, how life often lives you instead of you living life. I have this wonderful plan in my head. One clean house, one well rounded and educated child, one fed and um....loved:) husband. This plan, of course, is void of neighbors dropping in, work dilemma's that go hours longer than they are supposed to, and most of all, family members that are a bit, is there a nice way to say this? No, so I'll just say it, CRAZY!!

I am happy that I do have the idea in my head of how I want to live my life. That's a start. And perhaps, for our family, it is God's little nudge to consider uprooting and finding an entirely new place to flourish. Ok, I've got it. It's kinda like a garden where there lives two flowers and their seeds produce a little bud. But there are some weeds that keep popping up and threatening the flowers and placing the bud in danger. Perhaps the best thing, since nothing else seems to be working, is to relocate the flowers and the bud to a safer garden. Sure, there is always the threat of weeds in the world, one would expect that. But in one's own garden, shouldn't there be peace in the knowledge that one is safe from weeds? Wow, talk about killing a metaphor! If you read this and have a sudden urge to visit your local nursery, that's ok.

So, we've already run this by a couple Christian friends and a couple non Christian friends. I'd like your opinions as well since I value them. If you recall, Danny and I had a wedding/ party in 2006. We planned on writing vows and adding some other wedding traditions but things got a bit messed up (are we seeing a pattern here?) so it just ended up being a party. Now, having said that, it was the only wedding we got so it was supposed to be somewhat sacred. Well, a couple of weeks before the wedding, I decided to check out Danny's sister's, who we were not too thrilled with at that point because she was doing some questionable things with her life, the latest at the time, breast implants, myspace page. I found her main picture to be one of her and Lucy while the rest were mostly of Jana with her breasts hanging out, a couple with girls touching/ licking them (over the shirt) and comments about how hot her t_ _ts looked. Danny immediately called and told her to remove our daughter's picture. Which she refused.

At the end of the conversation, Danny told her if she didn't remove the picture, not to bother coming to the wedding. She said, "Well I was invited so I'm coming," to which he replied, "you are being uninvited and if you show up, we will have you removed." He tried to discuss what was wrong with Lu's picture being on it again but was met with yelling and cussing. So, the day of the wedding arrives and Danny didn't think she'd show up but I kept telling him I wasn't so sure. She arrived at the very beginning. Now, this is three weeks after we talked to her so she had ample time to remove the picture and make things right but chose not to. I kept Lu in the bathroom with me while Danny told Jana to leave. She threw a fit and his parents started fighting alongside of her, saying if she left they'd go with her. At some point my dad stepped in and said he'd go too until I explained to him why and that in the future, if we're doing something that extreme, we have a darn good reason. He took our side after that. In the end, I was in the bathroom crying (I'd just gotten over the flu) and Danny's mom left with Jana and didn't come back. A week after, we threatened legal action and the picture was finally removed. His parents, even after we explained everything, took her side.

Ok, so jump ahead to Christmas where Danny's brother Chris moves in with yet another girlfriend after three weeks of dating and a short time later knocks her up. We go to dinner with them, after he proposes with a forty five hundred dollar ring on credit, just to hear his mother brag and rant about how proud she is of him for being eligible for so much credit and all about the baby and "oh, Lucy did you hear, you're getting a little cousin." When we mentioned that we'd been looking into adoption, his mother didn't even acknowledge that we'd said anything. There was so much money talk, Danny and I actually felt ill after dinner. However, they hadn't seen our office so we brought them over. "Do the lights actually work?" His mom asked, "Do these computers and phones work?" His brother asked. Danny and I, looking shocked I'm sure, answered yes, how could we run a business if those things didn't work? A short time later, they miscarried and Lucy said, "Maybe God let that happen because they aren't married."

Again, a short while later, Chris' fiance joined Danny's parents on a little trip where the two ladies got drunk together and Shannon shared that they're trying to get pregnant again. Then, a couple weeks ago, Shannon called Danny to tell her that they moved the wedding up to August and would he be in the wedding party. Danny's dad called him the next day all excited and planning the dinner and Sandy and Shannon and Shannon's mom are planning and having fun. And Danny got upset. I guess things hadn't been entirely resolved from our wedding but he was really hurt and he doesn't usually get like that. He called his dad and tried to explain his feelings about how we were treated at our wedding and how Lucy should be protected in her family, and we didn't feel the wedding and the people attending would be the best for her to be around. Fred started trying to make Danny feel guilty by saying he should come without us then for Chris. Danny tried to discuss the problems with the entire situation for three days but Fred continued to say Danny was just angry and he kept standing up for Jana and Chris' actions. Danny told him that if his family couldn't go, he didn't want to be there either.

Fred also told Danny that since we didn't do vows and such at our wedding, it really wasn't as much a wedding as Chris' is going to be. "It's the only wedding we're going to have." Danny reminded him. "Chris is really upset that you're not going to be there, he's almost crying." At that point I got upset and shouted, "I cried at my wedding Fred, why didn't you care then?" I told Danny that Fred and Sandy are wrong to criticize us and stand up for the immoral acts of their other children. But that it's hard enough to admit to being wrong in general let alone to your child. Since it was making Danny feel so bad and nothing was being accomplished I told him that he should step back for a while until he could work through his feelings and disappointment. We're not angry, just hurt and sad that nobody is bothering to protect the youngest member of the family or teach her morality by living it and being aunt's and uncle's that are role models for her.

So, what do you all think? We believe we've done the right thing for our family and especially our daughter. Of course there's much more that has happened than I can write here without giving myself a hand cramp but that's the gist of it. We don't believe, like many, that we should just let bygones be bygones for special occasions at the risk of Lu's safety. Our job first and foremost is to protect our daughter and raise her up in Jesus, if that means we lose some family members, so be it. She should be able to rely on her family for safety and yet they've been the one's to put her in more danger than the outside world. That makes me so sad.