Why? This simple word can hold so much emotion and so much passion.
It is the question we ask when we are seeking an answer to the extraordinary pain we encounter. But sometime in our journey, the “why?” changes from a desperate cry for help to a surrendered question of purpose. The word same word, “why”, can ask two very different questions, with the help of some inspiration.
As we move toward acceptance of our situation as temporary and begin to see it as an opportunity to become better, we change the intention of our question, “why?” We begin to seek understanding and the deeper purpose of what we are experiencing. In other words, we stop seeing only how this is impacting us and we look up to see what is happening around us. The second “why” is seeking inspiration to overcome and make a difference. The answer to that why will change your world.
"The leaving was always the hardest part of the visit."
I remember very vividly how hard it was to leave the prison after a visit. My heart was broken, and I longed to have Ron come home with us. The pain would swell up in my throat and it took every ounce of willpower I had to hold back my tears. My sons, too young to understand what was happening, would beg Daddy to come home with us.
The leaving was always the hardest part of the visit. I noticed that many of the others around us said good-bye without a tear. The casualness of their farewell seemed so out of place in this building surrounded by a huge barbed wire fence with guards everywhere we looked. I would walk out to my car, settle the boys in the back seat and start for home. Inevitably, the boys would fall asleep listening to the radio and I let the tears flow. I cried so many tears driving home without Ron.
The emptiness I felt stayed with me for days.
I tried to pretend that it didn’t affect me, but it did. The process of getting in to see him was demeaning. Every detail about me was suspect—my clothing was evaluated for appropriateness; all of my belongings were searched, and most of them restricted from going in. I am not sure why my Chapstick was so dangerous—but apparently it posed a threat to security. It was a very humbling experience. But, it was worth it to see Ron and spend time together as a family.
Seeing him, being a family together, and then having to return to the “real world” alone was something I couldn’t get used to. Once he entered the visiting room, I was a wife and a mother. I could feel his love and longing for me. Outside the gates, I was a welfare mom, the wife of a convict, rejected by society. I kept waiting on help to show up! Surely someone could see how difficult this situation was for a family to go through?
After several months of suffocating pain after our visits, I drove home in tears - again.
Walking into my lonely, dark home I got the boys fed and ready for bed. After tucking them in for the night, I sat down and thought about the experience I was having. I thought about the many families that filled the visiting room and how sad most of the children looked. Even when they smiled, there was still sadness in their eyes. I thought about how so many of the adults and older children had built walls around their emotions and how it was obviously creating distance in their relationships—and I knew it was in self-defense to protect themselves from this extraordinary pain. But I also knew that in the long run, they wouldn’t make it through because the distance was going to destroy their commitment to each other and the numbness was going to take over.
I didn’t want to see all of these families fall apart.
In that moment I knew that not only did I want MY family to make it, but I also wanted other families to make it. I wanted the little boy with the big blue eyes and stained shirt who sat at the table next to ours to have a strong family; I wanted the little girl with the beautifully braided hair and sweetest smile on the other side of the visiting room to experience her Daddy coming home and swooping her up in his arms. And I wanted the moms to feel the sweetness of being loved and cared for, even if it meant also feeling the pain of the good-byes. I didn’t want to see all of these families fall apart.
Suddenly I felt compelled to make a difference.
I knew I had to figure out a way to navigate through the pain and loss in a healthy way, lead my boys safely to the other side of their own loss, and then help others. I found my inspiration and my new “why?” For me, I knew God was allowing me to experience this so I could see the brokenness, hopelessness, and desperation families were experiencing.
Don’t miss out on your destiny to make a difference.
Had Ron never gone to prison, I would have lived my life completely oblivious to the pain all around me. I never would have known the depth of the problem, nor would I know how to help others. Finding the inspiration to overcome our circumstances was life-changing for us. Not only did we want to save our own family, we could now see a bigger purpose for our pain. Discover how to stop generational cycles of incarceration at tyro365.com.
You will know you are on the road to recovery when you start asking the inspired “why?” You have so much opportunity to make a difference for others. Don’t miss out on your destiny to make a difference. You might be the one to save a family, change a policy, or fix a broken part of our judicial system. The possibilities for good are endless. Your pain is not in vain when it becomes the inspiration you need to live up to your purpose.
I am rooting for you!
Cathy