The front door is open

Snapp secret... I've always been envious of the southern families I see on tv. You know the ones. The ones where Sunday dinner means dinner with all the cousins and aunts and uncles. The ones where graduation means the whole family comes to celebrate. The ones where the whole family, grandma and cousins included lives within a few blocks of one another.

My family has never been close. Due to a lot of sin and a lot of hurt feelings I've never had much of a relationship with my siblings and their children or even my parents siblings and their children. We reap what we sow. And the good Lord knows I have done my fair share of separation away from my family. Equally the good Lord knows that my family has separated from eachother and it has nothing to do with me.

Part of me thinks this is natural for midwestern modern day families. We move apart, have differing views, differing schedules and we all skedaddle apart. But in my heart sometimes it hurts.

I have this crazy dream that I will have multiple children and build a compound on the farm where each kid and their families will have a home and somehow my grand children will be close to their cousins. That's my dream. That's my prayer.

I wish I could go back and change the past and make it so everyone lived near by and Sunday dinners meant the whole family. But God doesn't allow me to go back, only forward. And sometimes forward means leaving people alone. That's one of the most painful lessons God has taught me. Sometimes forward means not messaging my niece to tell her I love her despite her father blocking me from being in her life. Sometimes forward means not reaching out to my father's brother and inviting him to dinner at my house. Sometimes forward means leaving everyone alone and focusing on my own families future. And that is hard.

But I continue to dream. The lord put this dream in my heart for a reason. A dream where my grand children will have Sunday dinner with their cousins every Sunday. A dream where my mother will live with me at 95. A dream that if I put focus towards, may one day come true.

Until then I will do the small things that bring me comfort and make me feel a little less without family. I have holiday dinners at my house with the cousins and aunts and uncles. I message my aunts. I go and visit random relatives when I have time. I leave my front door open. Because I may not be able to go back in the past but I can at least leave my door open for today and tomorrow and the future.

Lindsay Snapp

Comments

Why Not Be Kind?

Snapp secret... I think I might be out of the loop with the driving philosophy of the times. I have spent some time on social media lately and I have seen an overwhelming amount of posts directing people to be more selfish and isolated. To put themselves first before all others One such post said " In your 30s you will realize how much of your life was built to please others. It's very important to burn it all down and rebuild it for yourself." This is actually the exact philosophy of the church of satan. I'm not being coy when I say that. I actually have read through their whole philosophy and it is in their belief system to be selfish and not help others. This post, I mention, had thousands of likes and thousands of comments cheering for it. And all I felt when I read it was confused. I spent my youth being very selfish and not pleasing a single person but myself. If someone asked me to make them a meal I would have declined. If someone asked me to teach them how t...

What really is intellect?

Snapp Secret... I always score high on intelligence quotient tests, and I feel they are a terrible test of intelligence. For those of you who have never done an IQ test let me tell you a bit about them. They are tests to determine if you can solve a missing piece of a pattern and determine a correct word. Which is a wonderful test if you want to know if a child will fall in line and do data well. But I argue, intelligence is the ability to create something new. Unfortunately this isn't something any formed test can truly verify you have the ability to do. No, the real test is how time remembers you. Will you be remembered as the person who cured cancer? Will you be remembered as the person who saved the aquifers? Those people are the true genius' of our time. I have taught gifted children, as judged by iq tests, and there is a quality many of them possess. An inability to move on from failure. When they receive their first F they give up on a class. When they are...

The Pain of Forgivness

Snapp Secret... I wish I wasn't such an easy target for people to be disrespectful. My mom and I were talking the other day and she said my whole life it's been as though bullies were attracted to me. Similar to how abusive men have a type, well bullies have a type too. And I'm it. Bullies are drawn to me for the same reason children are drawn to me, because I am way too forgiving. I seem to have no boundaries and allow everyone to walk all over me. Usually instead of my bully saying sorry I will say sorry for setting a boundary. I'm sure you are wondering about examples, well here goes nothing. In high school a boy keyed my car because I wouldn't date him. I apologized to him that I didn't date him. In my 20s I had a woman go to hr to get me fired so that she could get my job. I apologized to her that I had been making so much more money than her. In 3rd grade on the basketball team my team mates would boo me any time I went to shoot the ball in practice. I ...

Snapp Secrets

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