New Year’s is a time to look ahead, but it’s also a time to look back on the year we’ve just left behind. 2019 was not a terrific year for me. The section of my planner/journal that documents highlights of the year is conspicuously blank. That isn’t to say that nothing good happened at all, but rather that the some total of the year is something I’d like to forget. Every now and then we all have a bad year. 2019 was not the first bad year for me, but it was probably one of the worst.
In January of 2019, I was looking forward to a year of uncertainty. My 12-year-old daughter struggles with a mental illness that makes family life challenging at times. In December, she was placed in a mental health hospital as an in-patient, and they were not sure how to help her. A week or two into her stay, she began making false allegations of abuse against my husband, her stepfather. This resulted in a CPS investigation. We were told by the mental health experts that they were certain the allegations were false, a common symptom of her particular disorder. We were assured that they had adequately communicated this fact to CPS. We were confident that this would all blow over. After all, we had been surrounded by mental health specialists and mandatory reporters for the last year and a half. Surely, that would count for something.
Except it didn’t. The worker we had refused to speak to anyone who could verify that we were good, caring, non-abusive parents. She had her mind made up from the beginning. Doesn’t matter what the “experts” say, children don’t lie about abuse. That’s the mantra of most CPS workers. Except they do. And children with mental illness do it at a much higher rate.
It didn’t help that I have an abusive ex-husband who promised when we divorced that he would find a way to completely ruin my life. He’s been making fraudulent calls to CPS about me and/or my husband since our divorce began 7 years ago. Doesn’t matter that they are all unsubstantiated. Doesn’t matter that the allegations in each call contradict themselves. Doesn’t matter that I reported his abuse to the authorities, filed for divorce, and begged someone to do something to stop his constant harassment. CPS views victims of domestic abuse as potential perpetrators or worse, do-nothings who care more about their marriages/partnerships than their children. So when this allegation came in against my husband, CPS didn’t listen when I told them there was no way the allegations were true, that I had seen absolutely no corroborating evidence of any of these allegations at all, and that I had been assured by the many mental health professionals that they were false. I was just covering for my husband.
Of course, CPS has a policy to notify all parents of children in a household, so my ex-husband was notified that CPS had an open investigation on us. He may have even been given the allegations they were investigating. I don’t know. All I do know is that even after begging them to interview my children aware from their abusive father, they ignored me. He drove them to the CPS office for the interview. And suddenly my children with him had allegations of abuse as well. Allegations that matched all the previous unsubstantiated claims that had already been debunked by investigations. Only now, they somehow weren’t. Now, they were considered gospel truth!
And so the nightmare began. How do you prove your innocence? You don’t. You can’t. That’s why our judicial system is based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Except it’s not that way in family court when you’re dealing with CPS. There you are 100% guilty. Unless you can cast doubt, and then the best you can hope for is inconclusive. And there is so much bias against religious parents. Homeschool your kids? Can’t be because you are concerned about the lack of quality in the local educational system. Can’t be because your state supreme court recently ruled that schools do not have a constitutional obligation to make sure your student learns to read. Can’t be because local schools are crumbling around you. Has to be because you want to hide abuse. After all, they reason, schools are filled with teachers who have to report abuse to the state. Ignore the number of teachers who have been arrested and found guilty of sexually abusing our students. That’s irrelevant. Ignore the number of teachers who report actual cases of abuse to CPS only to be ignored. That’s also irrelevant. Ignore the fact that today’s homeschoolers are active in the community and seen by many, many people in the course of a week. That’s also irrelevant. No. The mere fact that you homeschool is a CPS red flag.
Are you religious? Do you raise your kids with certain religious beliefs? Believe children are a blessing from the Lord? Have a larger than average family? Think chores build character? Think again. Judges think more than 2-3 kids is excessive and evidence of neglect. After all, how can you possibly take care of all those kids? If your kids insist they are the only person on the entire planet to do chores in your household, even if that is demonstrably false based on the fact that you have 3 kids ALL claiming to be the only one with chores and none of those chores are the same, you are guilty of abuse. Expect older kids to help out with younger siblings from time to time? That’s abuse. Do you believe in spanking in rare circumstances and as a last result? The simple fact that you have that belief, even if you have not spanked your children recently, is still a mark against you.
So we found ourselves in court with our children preemptively removed because CPS doesn’t need proof of abuse, just the hint of it. In CPS cases, you can’t share attorneys with your spouse. They actually don’t want you to stay married. We were told point blank that if we wanted our kids back, our best chance was to divorce each other and admit guilt. Fight the system, and they will make you an example. Lie and say you did things you would never do, and they’ll consider it “taking responsibility” and fast track your kids coming back. And attorneys fees for this? They start at $5,000 each. And that doesn’t include court costs, boarding costs (that’s right, you pay for your kids to be in foster care at a rate that starts at $100 per week per child), etc.
And the judge doesn’t have to find proof that you’re guilty of abusing your kids. They only have to find preponderance. Preponderance means that if we put all the evidence on a scale, whatever way the scale tips at the end, even if it’s only slightly…is the winner. And by all the evidence, what they really mean is all the evidence they allow. We had evidence from pediatric child abuse specialists paid by CPS to find evidence against us that actually ended up exonerating us, but the judge wouldn’t admit it. We had evidence that called into question the validity of the statements my children made after my ex-husband had access to them, but the judge wouldn’t admit it. We had proof of false statements made under oath and at least red flag testimony that called into question our guilt, but the judge wouldn’t allow it. I even had a psychological evaluation done by the premier neuropsych testing facility in the city that stated I was a good parent with no mental illnesses and no red flags of abuse, but the judge wouldn’t allow it.
So 2019 was a year full of misery and disappointment. I went from a house full of the laughter of my 4 children to a house that was empty. My husband wasn’t even allowed to be here. I felt abandoned by God. Nothing made sense. Nothing.
And yet, there were moments of joy in the midst of that suffering. There were people at church who rallied around us, prayed for us, encouraged us, and still surround us today to make sure we’re still fighting and that we’re doing okay. There were days when I said, “God, if I could just here a word from you saying _____________, I know I could make it through,” and then suddenly someone would come up to me and say, “I just feel like I need to tell you _____________.” Verses jumped out at me in Bible readings that spoke directly to my life in that moment. Prophetic words were given to me. There were times I felt God’s arms wrapped tightly around me. Moments of joy in the midst of pain. Streams in the desert.
My marriage struggled, recovered, and struggled again. God is changing us. He is molding us and shaping us into something new. When you are put under pressure, a lot of stuff comes out of you. If you’re full of good things, only good things come out. But we are sinful people, so what comes out first is usually our sin. I saw attitudes and thoughts and things in myself that I didn’t like, so I took them to God and He began faithfully working those things out of my life. I can honestly say that looking back now I see much more fruit than junk, and that’s a good thing!
If 2019 was a year of plowing up the hard parts of my heart, rooting out the bad seeds, digging out the rocks, planting new seed, and pruning me, then 2020 must be a year of abundant harvest. It has already begun. We have been blessed in the fact that all the hoops we have to jump through for foster care have resulted in those workers being on our side. They support us. They are willing to testify that we could not possibly have been bad parents to start with and definitely aren’t now. We have been given a payment plan for our legal fees and court costs, and may be able to waive some of them, so that we can afford to get through this without filing bankruptcy.
God has provided miracle provision at times so that the bills were paid. I asked God for 2 things before the end of the year, and He provided both of them plus a little extra for my husband and I to enjoy a dinner out together at a nice restaurant. My husband will be starting seminary classes to work on his undergraduate and graduate degrees in the hope of fulfilling God’s calling on his life to be a pastor. I have seen God’s favor moving in my life, and I am confident that we are on the way up from here. Job was given a double portion for suffering well, and I pray that I will receive the same because I serve the same God.
God is faithful! He is fighting this battle on my behalf, and He has already won the victory for me. My God is a God of restoration and redemption, so I know He will restore my children to me. He is a God of resurrection power, so I know He can resurrect our family and my marriage from the ashes of 2019 and make it a thriving source of the fruit of the Spirit and joy and peace in the year ahead.
Amen!
A Beautiful Mess 