Angela Thomas - My Single Mom Life: Stories and Practical Lessons for Your Journey

2007 by Angela Thomas

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thomas, Angela, 1962
Single mom life : true stories and practical lessons for your journey / by Angela Thomas.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7852-2128-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7852-8912-8 (IE)
ISBN 978-0-7852-8955-5 (trade paper)
1. Single mothers--Religious life. 2. Christian women--Religious life. I. Title.
BV4529.18.T45 2007
248.8'431--dc22

2007004623

Printed in the United States of America
08 09 10 11 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Lisa

Your organization and servant heart
are such selfless gifts of love.

Thank you for helping us
hold this crazy life together
every single day.

contents

My mother made me play the Tuba because Tubas were provided by the school, and all the other instruments cost money. I did not want to play the Tuba because I was fat. I knew, even in the sixth grade, that being fat and playing the Tuba would reinforce a stereotype. My father, who left when I was a kid, was a basketball coach, and I suppose if he would have stayed I would have been a basketball player. There are no stereotypes about fat basketball players. I could have been the guy who only played defense, just standing around beneath the rim causing trouble in the paint. But my father was not around, so I played the Tuba. I thought at the time my life was being ruined, but it was not. I came to find out that hours of practicing the tuba made you a good kisser. Basketball does not make you a good kisser. Although it increases your chances of actually kissing anybody, it does nothing to tenderize your lips. All that to say I am a very good kisser. I didnt want to play the tuba, but now I am grateful.

My mother made my sister and me go to church. Because of this, I did not get to watch football on television. I am older now and dont live at home so I watch a great deal of football on television. I only go to church half the Sundays during football season, partly because I love football, and partly to express my independence from my mother. Its not a resentment thing, its an independence thing. If I would have been raised by monkeys I would not eat bananas on Sunday. If you are judging me for only going to church half the Sundays during football season, then you are a pessimist. I do go to church the other half. And at church I learn about God, and sing about Him and pray to Him and take the Eucharist to remember Him. I do this because my mother made my sister and me go to church. I never wanted to go to church, but now I am grateful.

I was in Scotland earlier this year and some friends and I went on a hike in the Highlands. I learned about sheep there. There were a man and a dog in a meadow herding sheep across a creek, and my friend and I sat on a hill and looked down on the shepherd, and I couldnt help but think about Jesus sayings that the church was like family and the church was like a flock of sheep. If this is the case, then churches and families are messier than you imagine. Sometimes we are lead to believe families and churches are to be clean, and children and sheep are supposed to line up in a straight row and go exactly where the Shepherd tells them to go. But this is not so. And anybody who disagrees has never raised children or shepherded sheep. Shepherding, along with raising children, looks precisely like an extended mental breakdown. Cast the image of the gentle shepherd walking through the green meadow aside as pure Hollywood.

I think the hardest job in the world is to be a single mom. The single mom makes decisions and wonders whether her decisions are right because she doesnt have somebody else to blame for the chaos. But God brings us chaos to teach us our lack, and to graciously guide us to Him for comfort and direction. What I have learned is that if there is love and if there is God then, somehow, the sheep make it to greener pastures. This isnt to say there is no better way, because there is, it is only to say that the world is fallen, and shepherding is messy, and there are pros and cons of being a basketball player just as there are with being a tuba player.

I am grateful to my friend Angela Thomas for boldly telling her story. I found my mom in these beautiful pages, and while I do wish I had a father growing up, I am also grateful for the shepherd God gave me. She knew that God could make up for any lack, and she is my hero.

All the counsel of God to you as you cross creeks and chose free tubas over basketballs. And all the comfort of God to you in your moments of desperation and confusion. One day your children will meet their father in the Eucharist and they will have you to thank. And if your children are very lucky, they will turn out to be great kissers.

Sincerely,
Donald Miller

P.S. Three last things: If you are raising sons, I think it is a good idea to let them watch football a few Sunday mornings out of the year. And I also think it is okay to let them date at a very early age. And to eat ice cream just before bed. Angela left these important things out, and I am not sure why. You see, God is already providing direction.

P.S.S. When your sons grow up, tell them to send me twenty bucks.

introduction
dear mom like me

Dear mom like me,

I am absolutely sure this is not how it should be. The more years go by, the more I am convinced that my kids would do better with their mom and dad loving each other and loving them and all living in the same house together. But that is not my story, nor will it ever be, and so the question has become, how will this single mom live?

It has taken me a while to get to the answers. And in many ways, my children and I are still tripping through the process, trying to find our way. But what I can tell you is that I have the best life I have ever known. No really, I actually do. My heart is becoming more and more healthy. My home is peaceful. My kids are the regularsilly sometimes, dorky otherskind of kids. I bless God because they are turning out to be wonderful, compassionate, very fun people, and I adore them.

As I began to write this book, I knew immediately that I wanted it to be encouraging, positive, funny, and full of hope and inspiration. Thats the kind of book Id like to read about life as a single mom. But I also knew that I had to tell the truth of my journey, which means beginning with the darkness and the pain. Perhaps a wonderful life is more valuable when the lessons to acquire it are hard fought, and the journey is many days that feel like two steps forward and fourteen steps back.