Beauty of Broken - Softcover

Morgan, Elisa

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    522 ratings by Goodreads
 
9780849964886: Beauty of Broken
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0849964881 ISBN 13: 9780849964886
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, 2013

Synopsis

Find beauty and hope by facing and dealing with the messiness of family life.

The family is an imperfect institution. Broken people become broken parents who make broken families. But actually, broken is normal and exactly where God wants us.

In The Beauty of Broken, Elisa Morgan, one of today’s most respected female Christian leaders, for the first time shares her very personal story of brokenness—from her first family of origin to the second, represented by her husband and two grown children. Over the years, Elisa’s family struggled privately with issues many parents must face, including:

  • alcoholism and drug addiction
  • infertility and adoption
  • teen pregnancy and abortion
  • divorce, homosexuality, and death

Each story layers onto the next to reveal the brokenness that comes into our lives without invitation. “We’ve bought into the myth of the perfect family,” says Elisa. “Formulaic promises about the family may have originated in well-meaning intentions, but such thinking isn’t realistic. It’s not helpful. It’s not even kind.”

Instead she offers hope in the form of “broken family values” that allow parents to grow and thrive with God. Values such as commitment, humility, relinquishment, and respect carry us to new places of understanding. Owning our brokenness shapes us into God’s best idea for us and enables us to discover the beauty in ourselves and each member of our family.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Elisa Morgan is President Emerita of MOPS International, Inc., based in Denver, Colorado. She is the author, editor, or coauthor of numerous books, including Twinkle, Naked Fruit; Mom, You Make a Difference! Mom’s Devotional Bible; What Every Mom Needs; What Every Child Needs; and Real Moms. Elisa has two children, and a grandchild, and lives with her husband, Evan, in Centennial , Colorado.

Reviews

As CEO of a high-profile, Christian-based parenting organization, Mothers of Preschoolers, Morgan has operated for more than 20 years as an authority on parenting and spiritual transformation. At one time, however, she faced the prospect of having no children of her own due to her husband’s health issues. The couple opted to adopt children, a girl and a boy. Despite Morgan’s commitment to responsible parenting and Christian values, her children have faced difficulties assumed to be more common in dysfunctional families: teen pregnancy and substance abuse. By revealing her family’s personal challenges in highly readable accounts, Morgan shatters the myth of the perfect family. She also provides convincing testimony that accepting imperfection provides the surest means for fostering enduring love. This book offers relief and assurance for imperfect parents everywhere. --Susan DeGrane

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Beauty of Broken

My Story, and Likely Yours Too

By Elisa Morgan

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2013 Elisa Morgan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8499-6488-6

Contents

It's Time to Talk..........................................................xvii
Part One: Broken Us........................................................
1. I Come from a Broken Family Right Where God Wants Me...................3
2. Our Broken Families Church.............................................19
3. God's Broken Family Telling Stories....................................30
Part Two: Broken Family Values.............................................
4. Commitment Once........................................................41
5. Humility Space.........................................................57
6. Courage Door...........................................................69
7. Reality Excuse My Language.............................................81
8. Relinquishment Q to the 16th Power.....................................92
9. Diversity Grandone.....................................................104
10. Partnership Different.................................................114
11. Faith Five............................................................130
12. Love Hands............................................................142
13. Respect Fly Boy.......................................................155
14. Forgiveness Some Reassembly Required..................................166
15. Thankfulness Net Gain.................................................178
Part Three: The Beauty of Broken...........................................
16. A Beautifully Broken Legacy If I Knew Then ...........................191
Appendix of Hope...........................................................201
Scriptures of Hope.........................................................213
Notes......................................................................217
Acknowledgments............................................................225
About the Author...........................................................227

CHAPTER 1

I Come from a Broken Family


When I was five, my father sat in a white upholsteredchair in his home office and told me we needed to havea chat. I loved my daddy, and daddy time was rare—so I scrambledatop his legs as they stretched out on the ottoman before him.He put his hands on my scrawny shoulders, looked into my eyes,and stunned me with his words. "Elisa, I've decided I don't loveyour mother anymore. We are getting a divorce."

In that moment my family fell and broke. I wondered what Ihad done to break it and what I could do to fix it.

My fractured family—my mother, sister, brother, and I—movedacross the continent to the hills outside of San Francisco.I'm not sure why Mother moved us so far away. Earlier in theirmarriage, I'd been born there. Perhaps it held memories of happinessshe hoped to reclaim. In any case, we lived in the 'burbsand Mother worked in the city, driving the dramatic span of theGolden Gate Bridge there and back each day.

A peek at her pedigree revealed that Paige, my mother, wasthe adventurous type. After she survived polio as a seven-year-old,it's no wonder her parents doted on her as their precious,gifted child. She went off to college, double-majoring in mathematicsand airline administration. (There were airlines then?)From her home in Texas, she moved to New York City, whereshe worked for the C. E. Hooper Company—the company thatinvented the earliest television ratings system. A single girldoing single things in the big time. Eventually she hosted herown radio and television shows back in Texas, where she metand married my father and then settled down to housewifery.It wasn't a role that suited my ambitious mother, and soon shebegan to lose herself in the husband-focused era of the 1950s.

After the divorce, my mother courageously returned herattention to her career, but her heart wasn't in it. Or maybe herheart wasn't whole enough to invest it anywhere after the rejectionof my father. Instead of receiving joy from her work, Paigebegan a long decline.

For me, those fun and free early-elementary years were filledwith ballet and Girl Scouts and hours of make-believe. One ofmy favorite imaginings was the Old West, where I would galloparound in our yard on my broomstick pony, gathering mimosapods, and then squat to crush their seeds into a pulpy pretendfood, mimicking what I imagined about Native American life. I'dtie long garden stakes together at one end to become the form for ateepee and cover them with an old bedspread. Or I'd take my plastichorse collection out to the flower beds, where I'd prance themabout under what I imagined to be sequoia-sized azalea bushes.

Aside from the shattering announcement made by our principalover the loudspeaker that President John F. Kennedy hadbeen assassinated, and the repeat act against his brother Robert afew years later, I remember this season as "happy with a hole."

About every six months my father visited from Florida,where he'd transferred with his "now" family of a new wife andher daughter. We'd so been replaced. My baby brother was tooyoung to accompany us out to dinner. So it was always just mysister, Cathy, two years older, and me—along with my father'snew wife, now our stepmother. I kinda hated her. No, I didhate her. She'd stolen my father from me. In twin petticoateddresses with matching black patent leather shoes, my sisterand I would wait at the front window until his Cadillac pulledin the drive and the dog barked his arrival. All the excitementof seeing Daddy twisted into turmoil as we sat in grown-up,fancy restaurants and tried to cut through the awkward silence,lumped up emotions, and well-done steaks with knives we couldbarely manage.

As far as I could tell in those early years, Mother kept allthe balls in the air. In fact, in typical Paige flair she went waybeyond the norm in many instances. There was always foodin our pantry, but she rebelled against everyday cuisine andinstead offered us dishes like "Weenies in a Cloud" (a casserolecreated from cut-up hot dogs, mashed potatoes, and Velveeta)and "Petit Morceau" (after consulting her French dictionary,Mother christened "scrap stew" with this fancy title). Therewere always clothes in our closet. Often matching clothes formy sister and me, but also some fun items. I remember muumuusbrought back from our grandparents' trip to Hawaii. Wecalled Mother's parents Munna and Bop, and they pronouncedHawaii "Hawaya."

Mother embraced our need for a dog with a black cockerspaniel named Lacy—whom we all discovered was pregnantwhen she pawed at the door, crouched the second she hit thepatio, and then raced around the yard, trailing a tiny puppy stillattached to the umbilical cord that attached to the placenta thatwas still inside her. Of course at the moment I didn't know suchthings existed. It just looked to me that Lacy had pooped a puppyand ran from it, appalled.

Even if she was a bit unusual in some ways—Mother insistedon giving out apples and raisins at Halloween because "childrenneeded a healthy alternative to candy" (how embarrassing!)—shebrought all the holidays to life. Christmas morning wasa department store window display of toys for each of us. Ourbirthdays were celebrated with a homemade cake and a party—likethe dress-up bridge party where we all wore our moms' oldball gowns. And to her credit, she fostered our relationshipswith our two older half brothers from my father's first marriageto the degree that they became safe harbors for us in the tumultuousyears of trying to make sense of our broken family reality.

Looking back, though, I can feel her weariness. She spent eveningsin her chair or on the couch, smoke circling up from hercigarette, condensation forming on her ever-present highball ofScotch. Her bathroom shower remained untended, mildewedscum forming in its corners. Her car ashtray overflowed withcigarette butts, some still lit and burning holes in the carpetedflooring where they had fallen. There were signs.

Either because Mother was over the adventure of the city ordue to the cost of living and living alone, the summer after fourthgrade we moved "home" to Texas, where she had grown up. Selectinga distance close enough for our connection to grandparents inFort Worth but far enough away for her independence from herparents, she bought a traditional house in an upper-middle-classneighborhood in Houston and enrolled us in school.

Settling into our new world began happily. We were allowedto select paint, carpet, and even new furniture for our bedrooms.I went with robin's-egg blue paint; shag carpet stranded withblue, yellow, and green; and a modern and sleek walnut-stainedbedroom set. With complementary paisley-patterned floor-to-ceilingdrapes, my room became quite the showcase. It wouldeventually become my sanctuary.

It's around this time that my memories start to shift. Mother'sjuggling hands shake. The balls begin to fall to the ground. Theyare glass balls now, and I cut my feet on their shards.


* * *

EEEERRRRRRRRRRR! My days started with the sound of mymother's alarm down the hall. I pushed back the covers and paddedinto the kitchen, where I grabbed a glass, plunked in some icecubes, and poured Coca-Cola over them. With a handful of chocolatechip cookies from the cookie jar, I made my way down thehall to my mother's bedroom. There I placed "breakfast" on hernightstand, turned off the alarm, and began the process of gettingher up and ready for work. As a single mom, she needed to work,and it was my daily job to wake her up. Even though I was onlyabout eleven, I could see it: my mother struggled with alcohol.

My mother was broken. I wondered what I'd done wrong andwhat I could do to fix her.

In my middle school years, I vacillated between good girl andnot-so-good girl. Mine wasn't a long disobedience, but rather onewhere I carefully evaluated who I wanted to be and what roadwould take me there. I didn't know it at the time, but lookingback now I can see that I, too, was broken. I stole cigarettes frommy mom's skinny cigarette drawer and snuck down to the bayouin our neighborhood to smoke them. At one sleepover I sampledalcohol and ended up sick on bourbon and Coke. Eventually Ilooked at the other kids in my class, those experimenting withall things rebellious and those who weren't. There were "popular"kids in both sects. I decided to go the nonrebellious popularroute and cut out most of the bad stuff.

Most of it. I still had my moments. Once I hurled raw eggsthrough my good friend's open front door on Halloween night,ruining her mom's wallpaper. At one of my mom's friend's weddingsI downed eleven glasses of champagne—eleven—only toarrive home in my date's arms, launching my insides that werereminiscent of raw eggs. Ugh ...

When I was sixteen I became a Christian—but I'd beenbecoming a Christian my whole life. Way back when I was akid in California, my mom dropped my sister and me off at theneighbor hood Presbyterian Church on Sunday mornings. Wewent to Sunday school and sang in the adult choir because weneeded something to do to fill the time until she picked us upagain. "Lo how a rose e're blooming." I had no idea what thosewords meant, but I sang them with feeling in my oversized burgundychoir robe and creamy satin stole. Once, walking down thelong church hall toward a portrait plate collection of Jesus and thedisciples hung on the wall, I felt an eerie-perfect draw of his eyesto mine. He was real.

In my teen years, when I heard that there was a specific processto becoming a Christian, I was dismayed that I'd been so slowto know and respond. My heart grieved that I'd somehow doneeven this—loving God—wrong, and I wrestled with whether he'dfelt somehow slapped in the face by my ignorance. Blinded, prayingfor forgiveness, I plunged ahead and gave my life to Jesus.Maybe now I'd get it right? Maybe now life would heal up?

One night Mother and I argued over just how great a dad mydad was. (I think this was the season when I began to refer tomy mother by her first name: Paige.) My position: he was not sogreat. Paige defended him: He provided. He cared. He just didn'tshow it. To her credit, she never said anything bad about him.

That very night I had a dream in which I saw myself fallingoff a high cliff, into what looked to be flesh-colored rocks farbelow. But as I landed, the rocks surprised me with their softness.They were not rocks after all, but rather the huge hands of God.I heard a voice saying, "I am your heavenly Father—I will neverleave you nor forsake you."

I tucked these words away, wondering, Could such a thing be true?

I looked longingly at the seemingly perfect families of myfriends. The fathers who predictably left for work in the morningand returned each evening. The moms who dressed in prettyoutfits, sprayed their hair high, and wore lipstick, pearls, andpumps. The on-time family dinners around family tables in familyhomes. I wanted what they had. I determined that one day Iwould make a family immune from the brokenness and pain myfirst family had experienced.

It was a tough go, though. My mother continued to weavedown the hall late at night, pinballing her way between thewalls, glass of Scotch in hand. Smashed.

On one visit in my teen years I remember looking my fatherin the eye and asking if we could spend more time together. Heraised one eyebrow and said, "As long as you are dependent onme for money I will never love you." Crash.

After college, a six-year relationship with my high schoollove ended—one that I'd assumed would culminate in marriage.Broken. Symbolically now a divorcée myself, I wincingly realizedI shared this state with my mother. I hadn't thought sucha thing would happen to me. I increased my determination toavoid creating a broken family—of any kind—myself.

In the aftermath of the breakup I struggled to figure outjust what to do with the rest of my life. (I was at the tail end oftwenty-one.) After all, for six years my life had been connectedto a guy who planned to be a doctor, so I'd planned to be a doctor'swife. What training did that require?

A friend presented me with an embroidered plaque thatread, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord,'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you ahope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV). I took the verse at facevalue. God knew: the plans—for me—for good—for hope and afuture—for me.

Gradually I clarified God's call on my life and enrolled inseminary, where I explored and confirmed God's call to ministry.I dated pretty much every unmarried student and then called amoratorium on men. Surprisingly, I then met and later marriedmy husband. Precious, stable, rock of a man. We pledged to eachother a no-matter-what kind of love. For keeps. Forever. BecauseEvan had incurred and survived cancer a few years prior, we knewwe'd be unable to have children biologically and so immediatelybegan the process of adoption. I continued my determination tomake a whole family, one not marked by the pain and brokennessI'd experienced, though postponing it for a while.

The forever process of adoption dragged on, and I cried out toGod that I could hardly wait to give to my child what I'd neverreceived: wholeness. I longed to love into their lack. To fill theirvoid. In a hushed heart-whisper I heard God's gentle prodding,Elisa, by the time you receive your child, he or she will have alreadyexperienced the greatest wound of his or her life. I knew this wastruth. It vibrated through my soul with reality. My baby wouldinevitably be wounded by the choice of his or her birth parents,even in a very loving decision to relinquish their baby. But Ishushed the whisper and clung to the hope that I could createfor another the family I'd never experienced myself.

Finally—after a long wait—our adoption came through, andI mothered first one and then another child. Motherhood! Ababy! Love! At last! I lapped it up, licking around all the edges.We thrived in those early years of parenting and familyhood.Church was our second home. We had "Jesus time" every night.Great friends modeled mothering for me and fathering for Evan.Family dinners around a family table in a family home.

I happily hunkered down into those early mothering years,investing my skills and gifts in my kids—at last! But I struggledin some ways that surprised me.

One afternoon naptime revealed a reality of my mothering—ofme. I loved that waking time of cuddles and kisses. But when Igathered my three-year-old daughter up in a hug, I discovered herpants were wet. Again. Like so many other mothering moments,I defined my success by her actions. I felt I'd never get this pottytraining thing down.

I sat her in front of the TV—Sesame Street in those days—balledup the wet sheets again, and made my way to the basementlaundry room. There I stuffed them in the washer and then wasstunned to watch above my head an arc of detergent whirling inthe air. Coming straight from the box. Making a mess! The box wasattached to an arm. I followed the arm down and discovered—amazingly—thatthe arm was mine! I was hurling detergentin my basement all the while yelling like an adult in a CharlieBrown cartoon! Wa wa wa wa wah wah! As I listened intently Itranslated: "Why do I have to be the one to have all the answers?To be in charge? Why can't I be the one to ask the questions?" Irefer to this moment as my Suds Slinging Incident. Motherhoodrevealed me to myself. I was needy and broken. Such a thing surprisedme, as I'd expected to be better at this. More confident. Iknew God, after all.

A few years after this moment, my phone rang and a memberof the board of MOPS International was on the phone askingme to consider applying to become the first president of thisthen fifteen-year-old grassroots movement for moms. Whatwere they thinking? What was God doing? Me? The daughterof divorce and alcoholism? Sure, I'd been to seminary. Yes, I hadbeen ID'd as a leader all my life, and I knew God had called me toministry. But me and mothering? I laughed! So Sarah-like, whenas an old woman she was told she'd have a baby. Ha!

Nevertheless, I agreed to pray about the request and doubledup on my therapy sessions. In line at the grocery store I lookedaround at the other mothers—in sweats, in work clothes, withtheir kids in various forms of obedience and disobedience—andI saw in their eyes the same Swiss cheese holes I had experiencedin my soul. I felt God was saying to me, Elisa, let your deficits be youroffering. Terrified, I accepted the invitation, applied, was offeredthe job, and then served as CEO of MOPS International for twentyyears, touching over a million moms during those decades.

Even as president of an international organization for moms,there were other mothering moments that underlined my inadequacy,my Mother Inferior reality, my stature as Mother Elisa,not Mother Teresa.

Monster Mom made her appearances—once over cat vomiton the stair landing where I screamed, "Is the mother the only onein the house who knows what cat vomit looks like? Is the motherthe only one in the house who knows where the paper towelsare?" I slammed my way to the garage, where I crashed metal garbagecan lids together in cymbaled rage, all the while holleringat the wide-eyed family members on the other side of the closeddoor, at the air, at God.

I wondered, Would I be enough? As a mom? As a woman? Inmy heart of hearts I wanted desperately to create an unbrokenfamily. What if I couldn't? What if I actually contributed to furtherbreakage?


(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Beauty of Broken by Elisa Morgan. Copyright © 2013 Elisa Morgan. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Publisher
Thomas Nelson
Publication date
2013
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0849964881
ISBN 13 
9780849964886
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
256
Rating
  • 4.04 out of 5 stars
    522 ratings by Goodreads