Family Holidays with Drunks, Addicts, and People Who Do Not Like You

It wasn’t until God saved me as a teenager and I began to be invited into people’s homes and holiday celebrations that I learned first-hand that sometimes, families really liked to gather with one another at the holidays and that sometimes, decorations were lovely; music was redemptive; and food was delicious. (I had read about such things in books as a child, but never had the reality of the experience myself.)

My childhood holidays were different. I remember a lot of drunken yelling and slamming of doors and then sitting at an over-done formal table, plastering a smile on for the Polaroid to show how “happy” and “normal” we were. Then everyone scattering as fast as possible to a neutral corner to avoid having to interact with each other. (My sister and I were MASTERS at staying perfectly still, eyes not moving, not a muscle flinching, so as to avoid having the tsunami of rage turn in our direction and slam us down.)

And oh, yeah. Those were the “good” holidays when my family was still “intact.” Some of them even included trips to extended family gatherings or hosting people at our home. Oh man. Talk about ratcheting up the stress level. My mom didn’t clean our home very much when I was growing up—but OH WOW! Did we clean when we knew people were coming over. Murphy’s Oil Soap and Helen Reddy records a blarin’! We shoved piles into dark places and emptied overflowing ashtrays, threw away empty wine and liquor bottles by the caseload, and scrubbed nicotine off of every surface. (You don’t really dust when you live in a home with both parents smoking two packs a day—you really have to 409/scrub to even try to get that greenish-black paste off of everything.) And then we cut the tags off of our just-bought clothes from Kmart, duct-taped the dumpster-dived-tree to the wall to try to get it to stand up straight, and tried to look happy when the relatives we didn’t really know started showing up—many of them hugging us with too-tight of hugs, already reeking of alcohol, even though it was only 10AM.

(It was during one of those extended family holiday gatherings that an uncle distracted me with a cigarette-making machine. On a bed. Just the two of us. Until other adults “found us” and dragged him, screaming, from the room, and I was left there, so confused. My three year-old mind not understanding what I had done wrong. But it must have been something BAD because there was SO MUCH YELLING going on. You know. Right there among the fake Christmas greens and blinking lights.)

But holiday gatherings didn’t always have that level of drama. Sometimes we got to visit our mother in yet another hospital or detox center. (If you haven’t spent Christmas visiting someone in a locked-down mental institution, you probably can’t really relate to how bizarre, sad, and awful it is—and how strangely quiet it is, unless someone freaks out in one of the “commons” areas.) I remember those family holidays mostly as pathetic. My mom didn’t say much. (I assume she was heavily medicated or else in a lot of mental and physical pain.) I distinctly remember nurses trying to bless us with outdated Highlights magazines or treats of crackers and little plastic cups of powdered sugary drinks. (I now assume it was the electrolyte solution they gave to the people detoxing off of alcohol; at the time I just thought it was gross orange stuff in a cup.) We arrived. Signed in. Were searched for any hidden alcohol. Waited in a room filled with scary people until Mom was rolled in, or visited her in her room—but that was even scarier at times because she would often be “locked down” in restraints to keep her from hurting herself.)

“Here’s a card I made for you, Mom.”

“I love you, Mom. Feel better.”

Then I remember feeling SO guilty for being SO happy to get to leave. (What kind of child doesn’t want to be with her mother at Christmas?)

And then the divorce came. Holidays “shared” by court order. Being driven to a “neutral area” with one parental unit handing me off to the other parental unit. Knowing even as a young child that the parent that got to drop OFF the kids and get as FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE from their own children really felt that they had WON THE PRIZE. Off to the bar they went! Back to the lovers. Back to a day in bed with a bottle of Scotch. Back to anyplace and anyone that wasn’t me.

Oh, how I hated the holidays. But even more so, I hated my life. My family. I hated me.

“Everyone else” it seemed to my naive, childhood mind) had a “normal” life and a “normal” family and holidays of laughter and love and light and goodness and … well … everyone loved everyone else and got along and didn’t get drunk and have fights (or attempt suicide or be unfaithful to their spouses or spend money they didn’t have …).

I longed for The Folger’s Christmas Commercial Family and Home and Golden Retriever. And then I became a Christian.

God saved me, everything in my life was perfect. Right?

Nope. In so many ways, for the first few years, when God, “being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved (me)” revealed to me that I was “dead in trespasses” and made me “alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2;4-5a), things actually got worse for awhile because I did what so many (well-meaning, but immature) Christians do: I forgot to read the rest of the verse (and really, the rest of the Bible).

So I was the caricature of The Christian Jerk at the holiday gathering. You know who we are. Maybe you still are one!

The Christian jerk puts herself up on some sort of moral high ground and self-righteously looks at all of the “sinners” around her doing all of their “worldly” things and forgets the rest of verse 5 in Ephesians 2: that we have been saved “by grace.”  That “this is not of our doing, it is the gift of God.” (v9) “Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (v10)

The Christian jerk talks a lot, but listens very little. No one wants to sit next to The Christian Jerk at the holiday gathering. And who can blame them? I wouldn’t want to sit next to my baby Christian jerk of a self either.

But God is faithful to grow us up in conformity to Jesus (Romans 8:29)! He convicts us to how we are to walk–in humility, gentleness, patience (Ephesians 4:2). We begin to see that the filthy ashes from the cigarettes all around us do not even come close to the dark, rightfully damning stench of own sin and unbelief (Romans 6:23). Rather than thinking ourselves “other” when we compare ourselves to our unbelieving family, we see how similar we are! And our hearts overflow with love and a true desire to bless and never curse (Romans 12). To share the whole gospel with them because we love them not because we want to “fix” them. To pray that our lives and our words would be “gracious” and “seasoned with salt”  (Colossians 4:6) so that we do not “quarrel” or lead people into more ungodliness by our “irreverent babble” — but instead, we are “kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness, that God may perhaps grant them repentance.” (2 Timothy 2)

That God may grant them repentance. Not that we (Recovering Christian Jerks) may reason, argue, manipulate, or force them “into the Kingdom.” It doesn’t work that way! Thank God. Oh, how I thank God that it doesn’t work that way.

The truth is, God graciously saved us because it was in accordance with his “pleasure and will” to do so (Ephesians 1). And now that we are His children, He is growing us up in Christ (Who is our Head) to be a gracious, pleasing aroma (2 Corinthians 2:15)—inasmuchas it depends on us (Romans 12:18). Sure, some people are just going to always hate the stench that is the Light of Christ. We know this is true and we know what to do with people who hate us: Do good! Bless! Pray for! (Luke 6)

This takes time. This takes grief. Regular strengthening by the means of grace within the local church. Right worship of the One True Living God. Spiritual mentoring/discipleship. Friends who love us when we are still full of bitterness and hate. (But because they really love us, they not only refuse to add to our bitterness and hatred, they actually help us to repent). A heart fixed on eternity (our True Home!). The power of God to raise our dead hearts to life again. The grace to forgive. The grace to be forgiven.

Some of the resources that have helped me the most about these things:

• The Bible (Read it. Every day. Just read it. And then make sure you’re in a church that is preaching the whole counsel of the whole of Scripture. Get into Bible studies—sure! Great! But first? Every day. You and God’s Word. It really is living and active, separating bone from marrow. Don’t just read about the Bible. Read the Bible.)
• Addictions: A Banquet at the Grave (If your childhood, your life, has been touched by addictions—especially if you have confusion over what you have learned and seen and even been tremendously blessed by in “Twelve Step” programs like AA, NA, OA, read this book. It is life changing. One of the few books I read over and over again in life.)
• Choosing Forgiveness: Your Journey to Freedom (Oh, friends. Nancy Leigh DeMoss hits it out of the park with this one. Are you stuck in anger and bitterness and even rage toward people who have done great evil to you or to someone you love? Do you “know” you “should” forgive someone—but you feel you “can’t”, especially after decades and decades? Read this book. Read this book with a friend. It will help you. It has helped me.)
• Shame Interrupted: How God Lifts the Pain of Worthlessness and Rejection (If any of this post is resonating with you, then you probably know the gray, hard-to-define-but-crushingly-strong-feeling-of-not-good-enough-ness = shame. If so, get this book. Read and re-read this book. Or if it’s too long, read my chapter on Shame in Peacemaking Women.
• Loving Well — Even if You Haven’t Been (I’m so sorry that you haven’t been loved well. I’m so sorry that people didn’t genuinely LIGHT UP when they saw you walk in the door as a child. I’m sorry that you were not loved well—but you don’t have to spend your life defined by the sad reality of your childhood, your first marriage, the cult that called itself your “church”. You can change! Life can be different. God is bigger than your biggest sorrow. He gives us a way out. He gives us His very self.)

Oh. And even if you’re thinking this post doesn’t apply to you because you’ve had a relatively happy childhood and you have relatively happy family get togethers? Mostly, I just want to say, “HOORAY!” I love love LOVE hearing about husbands and wives who love each other; daddies and mommies who are functional adults who snuggle and protect and provide for their children whom they ADORE. I am THRILLED to picture children in clean homes with clean clothes (not Pinterest Perfect Homes with Pinterest Perfect Clothes—just not squalor; not in need of basics like clean underwear and shoes that fit; having access to needed, basic personal hygiene supplies and never having to try to figure out as a five year-old how you were going to find food to eat).

If you get to go to a Christmas Eve celebration tonight and there will not be slurred profanities screamed and no frozen, glassy, eyes stoned in a catatonic state? Rejoice! I rejoice for you! But I also ask you to please move with compassion toward those of us who had a different life story growing up—and we are just now trying to learn how to live this new life in this new way. Please be patient with us. Remember that there might be really, really good reasons why it is really, really hard for us to risk and trust. We have a duty to do so! And we are growing! But sometimes we have years (even decades) of pain and abuse to overcome before we can even begin to try to love as we are called to love.

“We are God’s children now!” (1 John 3:2) Now we know what love looks like because we have seen JESUS! He laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16). And so …

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear.” 1 John 4:18

So off we go to our holiday gatherings. Pleasant or unpleasant. Perfect or imperfect. (And all of them, by the way, are imperfect!) With hope and faith and confidence and love. Because God first loved us–we are ultimately safe (John 16:33). Wanted, cherished, protected … loved.

Blessings to you my internet-friends & real-life friends too!

Yours,
Tara B.

PS
Please don’t interpret any of this to mean that I think children or adults should be put around dangerous people in dangerous situations! I have an entire section of this blog devoted to protecting children from abuse and after that horrific situation with that uncle when I was a child? Even my family knew enough to never allow my sister or me to even see him ever again.

PPS
If you are more of an auditory learner, I have a number of free audio recordings (including my testimony and one specifically on holiday strife) on this page of my website: Free Audio Downloads. And if you would like an extended teaching on HOW God specifically helped me (and is helping me!) to move into the lives of people who have hurt me deeply, you can watch a keynote I did on Romans 12 at a Peacemaker Conference here.

[A repost from 2014]