Ididn’t care who saw the tears welling up in my eyes as I held up a 3×4’ sign bearing my nephew’s name. I had started the tradition eleven years earlier with my eldest daughter. I knew that family members would be yelling and screaming the names of their loved ones, despite the faculty’s admonitions to hold applause and jubilation until all the students’ names were called. I understood their joy. I felt the same way they did. My daughter had overcome many obstacles to graduate. Now, finally, she had finished high school. During the previous three years, there were times when it seemed that I was her primary obstacle.
The shameful truth is that ten years before her graduation, I hurt her deeply. I left my daughter and her four siblings to live with my parents for five years. Despite the emotional pain of not having her mother in her daily life from the fourth through the eighth grade, and other challenges, she graduated from her middle school class as co-valedictorian. Thank God for my parents, my grandmother, and my sisters!
During the time my children were with my parents, my life crashed. Fortunately, the pain of that crash caused me to surrender myself to Christ. To my amazement, God’s goodness and mercy followed me. Long before I expected anything to work out for me, I got married, and my children began living with me again. Despite my ignorance to the issues blended families often contend with, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be for my children to return living with me… and my new husband. Yet, I was overjoyed. All I could see was that God had restored my children back to me; I had a husband who loved me. Life was beautiful!!!!
As my daughter’s freshman year of high school began, I attended her high school orientation at a college-prep school for Detroit’s best and brightest. I was so proud. As the weeks and months passed, I allowed myself to become busy working and going places to sing and share with others the joy I had over the change God made in my life. Consequently, I was completely blindsided later when I realized that, despite my best intentions, when my children needed me emotionally and physically, I was still not available. My parental neglect was still alive.
In my daughter’s case, her attitude, behavior, and grades took a nosedive. Eventually, the principal told her that she could no longer attend her school and was required to spend the second semester of her junior year at a less challenging school. She was told that she might be allowed to return if she made significant changes in her behavior and her grade point average was at least 3.8.
After the first couple of days at the new school, the culture shock of metal detectors and less academic challenge caused my daughter to proclaim that she was “NOT going to graduate from THAT school!” By sheer determination and the grace of God, over the next semester, she won the hearts of her teachers as her academic skills improved greatly, leading to significant grade increases.
During this time, my daughter wasn’t the only one who had been working on changing things. I asked my children to forgive me for continuing to neglect them. Even though I was clueless about what I should do once there, I stopped working late at our family business. Looking back, I find it interesting that almost simultaneously, my opportunities to minister to others came to a screeching halt. Even though it was almost too little, too late for my eldest daughter, I began spending more time at home with my children.
It wasn’t long before I gained a bird’s-eye view of how restricted their lives had been. When my husband and I weren’t home, they weren’t allowed to go outside or have company. They could only do homework, chores, and watch television. I wasn’t there to help with homework, ask how their day had been, or comfort them when they had concerns on their minds.
Meanwhile, in my eldest daughter’s business class, she was given an assignment that required her to obtain letters of recommendation from others regarding her attitude and her ability to work well with others. To my dismay, she asked me to write and sign one of the letters. As soon as she asked me, I felt bad. Sure, I was proud of the improvements she had made at school, but I hadn’t witnessed any of the qualities and attitudes that the letter needed to contain.
Now that I was at home, I could see more of how angry she was with me for not loving her in ways that mattered to her. I remember the stabbing pain I felt as she said, “Mama, I don’t know why you won’t get this. We never have and we never will get along!” It was obvious that I had lost her respect. I had hurt her so badly that her pain had completely eclipsed any memories of the times when we laughed, danced, read, played, and sang together. She was right. I had abandoned her when she needed me.
Guilt wounded me so deeply that it almost overpowered the truth. In my desire to be honest before God, I couldn’t write a letter that talked about how cooperative and helpful she had been when she isolated herself. At the time I was clueless that she was responding to frustrating and chaotic blended family dynamics. Back then I believed that she just didn’t want to be with us. It took me a while to realize that this was her way of shielding herself from further feelings of abandonment and rejection.
Although she was doing well in all her subjects – Algebra, Chemistry, Band, Shorthand, English, History, and Business classes to her dismay, I chose not to write a letter. Since her teachers had nothing but good things to say about her, as an alternative, I recommended that she obtain letters from her teachers.
She spoke with her teachers right away, and they each responded with positive feedback. They knew she needed the challenge that the college-prep school would provide. They each instructed her to write the letters, and if they agreed with what she wrote, they would sign off on it. After several days and a series of conversations, my daughter emerged with six glowing letters of recommendation, signed, sealed, and delivered by her teachers. At the end of the semester, we were overjoyed. She completed her junior year on the honor roll with a 3.857 GPA.
When we went to meet with the principal of her former school, to our dismay, she didn’t recall saying that my daughter could return if she obtained a 3.8. Her recollection of the conversation was that my daughter would have to obtain a 4.0. Despite our efforts to jog her memory, she seemed unmovable. In that moment, my heart sank. My daughter’s heart sank. I can only imagine that my daughter was whispering prayers under her breath. I know I was. The only word I can think of to describe what happened next is providence.
With a mix of concern on her face but hope in her heart, my daughter placed her report card and the letters signed by her teachers from the previous semester on the principal’s desk. When the principal finished reading the six letters from her teachers at the other school, she remarked, “I don’t remember saying that Kristina could come back if she had a GPA of 3.8. But it is clear that the student I expelled is not the student who sits before me today. You can come back.”
Tears that had been forced to stay back under the attack of despair came freely at the command of joy! My daughter and I stood simultaneously to hug the principal. She returned our joy with an admonition for my daughter to continue what she started. At the time, it didn’t dawn on me how much the joy from that day would become overshadowed by even greater joy.
Her final semester of high school was loaded with tears of joy. As I received the award on her behalf from the City of Detroit as the Most Improved Student at her school, so that she could attend her senior luncheon, tears flowed. As we viewed proofs of her senior pictures, flashes from multiple cameras captured her in her prom dress, and as she spoke at her baccalaureate, tears flowed unhindered. I imagined seeing my daughter in her cap and gown, on the Honor Roll, beaming with joy as she accepted her diploma from one of the best high schools in the country. The anticipated joy seemed overwhelming. How could I express how happy I was without being so loud that I’d draw undue attention to myself? When the idea of creating a sign came to me, I just knew it was perfect.
At my daughter’s graduation, I was the proud mother of an overcomer! As other families yelled and screamed out the names of their loved ones intermittently during the ceremony, despite faculty admonitions, my family and I quietly held up signs. As I stood holding one of the signs, seeing different people pointing at my daughter’s name, tears rolled freely. I couldn’t help but remember the odds she had conquered.
Years before, when I refused to write and sign that letter, all I knew was that at home, my daughter was not displaying the cooperation and helpfulness the assignment required. I now see how the pain of my neglect drove her to isolate herself in her bedroom whenever she had the chance. Back then, my guilt and shame almost made me write the letter to appease her. But God had done so much for me, and I couldn’t; I wouldn’t lie about her behavior. Thank God for the idea to ask her teachers, who saw in my daughter a model student who needed the challenge that her previous school would give her, and they were willing to back it up in writing. I didn’t know it would be the catalyst for a family tradition that would last for more than a decade. I only knew that God’s Word is true, and it says that REAL love rejoices in the truth.
More than ten years after my daughter’s high school graduation, she and I stood together holding up signs proudly displaying my nephew’s name. He graduated from the very same school, as did her brother and two more cousins after her. Who wouldn’t shed tears of joy over that?
For more than two decades, each year that the school year ended, I anticipated the joy I would have as more loved ones from my daughter’s generation and the one after her would overcome the odds, graduate from high school or college, and make our family proud. As we continued the tradition of holding up our signs (or wearing our buttons when signs weren’t allowed), the joy came in waves, and the tears rolled unhindered.
Does a sense of past guilt keep you from choosing between pleasing God or your loved one? Today, I encourage you to rejoice in the truth, even when it’s hard.
Do you have questions? Send an email to ch*******@*********ne.org.
Full Disclosure: The information shared in this column is not intended to substitute for professional, pastoral, medical, or mental healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content is for informational purposes only.
Do you have questions? Send an email to ch*******@*********ne.org.
Christina Dixon is passionate about honoring God in her relationships in authentic and Christ-centered ways. Enthusiastic about helping others integrate biblically-sound wisdom with faith, she encourages, challenges, and inspires others to face life's difficulties with authenticity and God's truth.
