Eight months ago I was riddled with fear about whether or not I was doing the right thing.   I was on the verge of challenging everything I’d been aggressively taught to believe.   Not only that, but I was stepping into a realm my mother would call evil.

My mother’s teachings were continuous, rigid, and very black-and-white in regards to religion.  Her version never felt right to me, but I was afraid to challenge it.  What did I know?  I was just a child and she seemed very sure of herself.

It is easy to recognize now that ever since I can remember I had doubts about following her path.  How that doubt was born I cannot say, it was just in me, deep within my spirit.  Others in my family have never challenged their upbringing.  Therefore, I have come to terms with the fact that I am the black sheep because I broke out of the “gened” pool.

“Gened” is the term I use when a child is taught to accept another’s ill-guided beliefs as his or her own.  It is not quite the same as brain-washing because the source believes they have good intentions.  It is essentially the act of mentally programing children into human pignorance due to the fact that the programmer is pignorant.

“Pignorance” is my term for the ego-state one evolves into when they have not acknowledged their true self and close their mind to other possibilities.  Pignorance includes following the crowd, trying to live up to expectations of others and society instead of finding one’s own path and purpose, and allowing one’s self to be blindly led by human desires or worse, down the road to a very dark existence.  It’s open for further definition, but you get the gist.  Pignorance values the ego, mind and body over spirit.

The thing is, pretty much everyone displays pignorance at one time or another in their life.  One simply chooses either to 1. accept it and continue on, everyone else be damned if they don’t like it, or 2. to undo the programming and start again.  I chose to start again.

But, still I was afraid.  What if I was wrong?  What if what I was doing really displeased God?  I prayed and prayed and prayed for guidance, assurance and clear signs that I was headed in the right direction.  I read books upon books on spiritual awakening and enlightenment.  I learned to meditate, to totally calm my mind, relax physically, and wait patiently for answers.  I worked diligently on healing my emotional scars.  Many scars were unrecognizable.  They had to be reopened, as painful as it was, so I could see them clearly and determine what I needed to do to heal them and keep them from holding me back.

Each scar that was healed was a new break-through, allowing me to reach another level of spiritual understanding.  The understanding is not only of my past experiences, but also that of others’, too.  I do not have it all figured out and would never pretend to as that is simply unattainable, but to be able to help those close to me is a very welcome bonus in my study.

I have realized there are many, many children in my life who have suffered terrible consequences from poor decisions their mothers made.  One mother chose to be a victim of life’s unfairness because her father died when she was two years old.  She reveled in self-pity from not having a father-figure, eventually turning to alcoholism and drug addiction.  Some time after she became a parent, her two children were taken away.  But, even with that she did not stop her behaviors, ending up in one rehab after another.  Her children were even court-ordered to visit her overnight in rehab.  I mean, seriously???  They hated it and came to deeply resent her.  They were both diagnosed with PTSD from the many, many terrible scenes they witnessed which I won’t go into here, but go ahead and imagine the worst.

This Christmas will now be their second since she was murdered by a man with whom she chose to have a relationship, knowing that he had been previously convicted of attempting to murder his previous girlfriend.  She left her kids to live through the aftermath of the horror being plastered all over the news for days, reporting on the manhunt for their mother’s killer.

Their father and I lived through it all with them, as did our church, the schools and our community.  One hard lesson I’ve had to realize is that it’s not up to me to save them from their pain.  It’s up to them to save themselves.  They must heal their scars, use their experiences for strength no matter how painful, then become courageous examples for others with similar stories.

Before they can be an example for others, they need someone to be an example for them.  I accept the task that I now understand God has given me, of being that example.  I will show them how to heal, forgive and live strong.

May we as a blended, un-gened family also inspire others.