rehab: treatment for an addiction or a course of treatment that helps you get better after an injury.

We have decided as a family to take a year of our lives and go through ‘family rehab’. Do what now? We don’t have a drug addiction or an alcohol problem. But we have found ourselves, after years of plugging away at life, in a place of fatigue and unhealthy living. Our addictions haven’t been with a particular cocktail of substances, and our unhealth hasn’t been marked by heart attacks or high blood pressure. But I noticed myself gradually stumbling down the slippery slope of bitter parenting and selfish living. Patience for my children was virtually gone. The everyday tasks at home were insurmountable. Life was too busy to ever catch up. I was miserable, my husband was burned out, and the kids were replacing smiles with sass and rolling eyes. A day was deemed successful if fits remained at a minimum and we stayed out of each other’s way. We did have our moments of genuine, loving connection–and even fun. And if it weren’t for those moments, I think we would have unknowingly found ourselves with other mainstream American families- ignorantly functioning in dysfunction.
And so came the call to rehab. I felt as though now was the time to simply just stop–to stop ourselves from falling off the cliff. Our kids needed me to stop being impatient, stop being rushed to get nowhere, stop looking over their hearts to look at the calendar for the next day I could have to myself. But, as with any addiction, it’s rare that anyone can quit cold turkey. So God revealed through a number of closed door opportunities and a few opened bibles and studies the idea of rehab.
I don’t know entirely what is in store, but I am confident that God will be faithful and provide redemption and restoration. As of now, our kids will stay home for the upcoming school year and do their studies with the family as a whole. We will study the Word every morning. We will learn each other’s hearts. We will unite around meals, science projects, and Texas History. And hopefully be surprised by how much fun we can have together.
I hope that this blog will be a place for us to record over the next year God’s hand in the healing of a family. My desire is that as I write, and as our oldest daughter, Ava writes, He will be glorified for all His marvelous works. If all else fails, if Ava doesn’t learn fractions, and the laundry is never all washed and put away, at least we can say that we took a year to trust the Lord as a family. We took risk and sacrifice to center our lives back on Him, and I believe He will be faithful, because His Word promises his steadfast love and faithfulness.