Love Trumps Hate

Before I begin, thank you guys so much for all your support about my last post. I don't normally like to spill my guts about things that may be construed as "seeking pity", but I'm glad I did nonetheless. I am not the type to ask for help, but it was nice to hear all of your feedback. I loved the love. I promise to keep you all posted on whatever happens.

Any who, speaking of children and such, Cole is here for the weekend! Man, the things that come out of this mouth keep me on the floor with laughter. He is at this great age where he blabs about everything (even the latest gossip about his crazy bio-mom which Chris and I secretly love) and is wondering and questioning everything. He keeps us in stitches and loves to learn about life outside of his little shanty in Mississippi. I'm pretty sure you guys know how very, very liberal I am about people's beliefs and faith but I know many, many Christians who themselves would not agree with the way Cole is unfortunately being raised.

Chris' family and mine always joke that his mother's religion is a "cult". It's just a little inside joke, but if you know the details it isn't that far away from one. Every time I see her she is dressed very Amish... like long jean skirts and covered sweaters and no make-up. Chris explained that they believe women shouldn't wear pants. Members are also never allowed to wear bathing suits. I'm not necessarily saying these particular things make it a cult, but they also don't allow the children of the church to go to school because they don't want anyone to learn about science. They home school them in the hopes that only their beliefs are learned and nothing else. It is one thing to be a creationist, but to force your children to cover their ears and eyes to other ways of thinking? It's sad, really.

The good thing is, Cole seems to not be able to wait to ask us questions that he doesn't get answered at home... which Chris and I love! He is fascinated by dinosaurs and loves when we explain about how they lived millions of years ago (as he is taught by his mother's church that the earth is only 11,000 years old). He asks things about what Chris and I believe and he is starting to understand that everyone is allowed to believe whatever they want and that he isn't wrong for anything he believes and neither is Amanda and Dad for what they believe. It's almost like you can see his face light up when the things we answer for him make more sense than "Don't ask that, just worship God", which is what he says he is always told. It saddens my heart, but I know one day no matter how he decides to worship or what to believe, love will trump hate.

"Love trumps hate" is also a mantra I have to remind myself of a lot. Sometimes some not-so-great things come out of Cole's mouth, too, courtesy of some very close-minded and hateful things he is told. The other day he said that his mom told him that we were wrong for loving each other (meaning me and Chris). Shocked that someone so little and innocent could be told something so awful, we stared at each other. As patient as we always are when he parrots the horrible things his mother says (she apparently is quite the Negative Nancy and complains about things you should never say in front of your child), we asked him to explain. Basically it was just her religious nonsense about how because I am Chris' second wife that our love is wrong. And that's not even the real kicker. We know firsthand that she is engaged to someone and from our current knowledge, she's keeping it a secret. For whatever reason, she didn't want Cole to tell us. Um... hypocrite much? What kind of game does she think she's playing? Well, because Chris and I have eyes and ears everywhere, we are privy to her ongoings (which we have to do on our own because she refuses to communicate with us regarding Cole). When we put things into perspective about how she obviously loves her soon-to-be second husband and it is just the same as us loving each other, he totally understood. We even went as far to explain that everyone in the whole world is allowed to love who ever they want and just because someone says it is wrong doesn't mean it is... and we told him he has to listen to his heart. When we asked him what was in his heart, he said his heart told him that I was his family... and mine melted in turn.



It cut me like a knife to look at that sweet boy and see the questioning in his eyes just because he heard such a horrible thing from his own mother, the one person who should be showering him with love and not teaching him to turn from it. It made me physically ill to think that until we all talked about it together and set him straight that the light in his eyes were dim because she chose to spew hatred instead of encourage love. Love will trump hate in the end, though. Chris and I are happy and madly in love and he gets to see that in us every single time he's here. We don't tell him ugly things. We always even go so far as to talk about how we love his mother because she made him. When he's old enough, hopefully he will say "Hey, Amanda and Dad never talk bad about you, Mom, chill out" and the light and love he learns from us will outshine all her bad energy. I have 100% faith in this because Cole is a smart kid...

...even if the church he's currently subjected to teaches him that it's bad to believe dinosaurs came before man... sheesh.