As single parents, we are very, very acquainted with our shortcomings. It may have been a big indiscretion or mistake that we’ve made in our past, or maybe the day-to-day awareness that we’re not doing everything perfectly. In either case, most of us carry around a low-grade sense of shame a lot of the time. It’s hard to face head-on the fact that we fall short, but a significant part of moving towards health is embracing the good and bad in our lives. In those areas where we see ourselves as failing, having grace, and showing ourselves forgiveness are critical. So how do we do that? How do we face our weakness and show ourselves true grace as we move towards wholeness? 

Brad Schmitt spent 12 years writing a popular celebrity column for a major publication and was an entertainment reporter on TV. During his TV reporter days, Brad was convicted twice in three years for drunken driving. He got fired and went to jail and rehab before recovering from substance abuse in 2010. Since then, he has had a complete life change, leading others on the recovery path and becoming a single father by choice, raising a foster son. In this episode, we discuss what self-forgiveness looks like in his life.

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Why do we have to suffer if God can fix it? 

If God is all-powerful, why does He allow me and my kids to experience all this hurt? Why doesn't He step in? 

It’s a natural thing to be angry with God. To be clear, God is not dependent on us forgiving him, but we know that he wants an authentic relationship with us, so he embraces our hurt, disappointment, and questions… even about Himself. So what do we do with these questions? What do we do with anger towards God?

Our guest is Rick Cua; he was a well-known Christian recording artist, songwriter, ordained minister, and author. Unfortunately, four short months before recording this episode, Rick tragically found his daughter dead. In this episode, we explore how to reconcile what God allows to tragically happen in our lives.

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What we are talking about this week is a big issue for so many of us single parents. We want to move towards health and even recognize our part in the toxic relationship we’ve come out of. Yet, despite what we do, our ex (or others) continues to exhibit behaviors and traits that continue to offend and hurt. We recognize that forgiveness benefits us more than anybody else, but how are we supposed to forgive the actions or offenses that just continue to happen? Ongoing hurts bring up new pain and echo old wounds. In this episode, we discuss forgiving repeat offenders and offer four very helpful tips.

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As single parents, we’ve all been hurt. In some way, shape, or form, we have all been the recipient of an offense. Sometimes, our tendency is just to move on, wash our hands of a situation and try to pick up the pieces and move forward. Some of us get stuck on the offense, and as a result, we fall deeper into resentment and start defining ourselves as victims. We can start believing the story we tell ourselves that we are just destined to be taken advantage of, which ends up hurting us more. From a faith perspective, we’ve all heard the narrative of how important it is to forgive. But why is it important? Is forgiveness really necessary when sometimes it feels like the person that caused the offense is not worth our time, effort or grace.

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One of the things that plague us, single parents, the most is thinking about the future welfare of our kids. It’s one thing for us to struggle and deal with hard things; it’s an entirely different and heart-wrenching thing to worry about our kids, what happens to them, and their future. So many of our kids have seen relationships go very wrong, even a certain amount of volatility. Many of them internalize what they saw and blame themselves. Some of our kids have experienced the untimely death of one of their parents. In any case, our kids have been subject to traumatic life events, which, as we all know, can negatively impact their future. So how do we best set up our kids to have the courage and confidence to face their own relationships, their own opportunities, their own challenges… if we as parents may not feel confident ourselves? Today we hear some stories about how confidence and courage was built into a little boy raised by a single mom in North Carolina who went on to have a culture-shifting impact on this world. Our guest is George Shinn, who's dad died when he was eight, and he was raised by a single mom on welfare checks and hand-me-down clothes. He struggled in school and was the last person anyone thought would find success in this life. In fact, he finished dead last in his graduating class in high school. He went on to work in a textile mill, a car wash, and as a school janitor. He later attended Evans Business College in North Carolina while working with real estate and at car dealerships. Upon graduating, he raised enough money to buy the school and even other small colleges and consolidate them all under an umbrella Education System. He eventually sold the schools and bought an NBA basketball team, Charlotte Hornets, with the proceeds. He then went on to start the George Shinn foundation, which offers the love of Christ and the hope of the Gospel to hurting people. All of this against-all-odds story is rooted in a single mom's care. 

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All of us have been very acquainted with feeling broken, wounded, and defeated. With those realities, it’s hard to believe we can find courage. Many of us have gone to the church for help and as a refuge; unfortunately, some of us have found ourselves feeling marginalized from the very place we needed to feel uplifted. So, many of us felt that we don’t know if we have what it takes to be brave enough to keep going or believe there is much hope. So what do we do with that desperate desire for courage when we feel so defeated, wounded and broken?

Our guest is a trauma informed therapist and author who’s latest book is called "The Lord is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love" KJ RAMSEY talks about Courage for the Broken, Wounded and Defeated

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One of the things we hear more than anything else at Solo Parent is how so many of us deal with codependency. In one way or another, we've lost ourselves, our identity, our purpose, and our voice because we have revolved our world around making someone else happy to make us feel whole. There are a lot of things that we could talk about related to courage, but maybe nothing more critical than establishing how to have courage as a codependent to discover wholeness again, so that we can have our own voice and identity moving forward.

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It hurts to watch our kids face challenges and endure pain knowing some of the things we can’t fix, control, or even help them with. We feel like a bad parent if we can’t fix it or make it better. Most of us would rather take on their pain - but we can’t. So when our kids face hard things or things that hurt them, we often overcompensate, doing our best to lessen the blow, not helping them build the courage to face challenges for themselves. So how do we help them have the courage to deal with, or accept things, that hurt and are challenging when it feels counterintuitive to us wanting to protect them.

Fortunately for all of us, Dr. Chipp Dodd is here to guide us through How to help our kids accept things they cannot change.

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What do we do when we find our lives in a situation we never wished for or wanted? Betrayal, illness, death, our kids experiencing pain - or maybe we are the ones who have betrayed or caused hurt to others. When the reality we face is less than optimal, sometimes downright uncomfortable and challenging, our natural tendency is to fight and try to change things, which is not necessarily bad. But sometimes those painful things can't be changed, or we can’t control them. In those cases, what is my responsibility and what is not? The serenity prayer says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change." COURAGE to change the things I can… So today, we are flipping that a bit and asking - how do I have the COURAGE to face the things I cannot change in order to find serenity.

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Let’s face it, as single parents, and we are all carrying relational baggage and unhealthy habits around that we can pass on to our kids. Many of us have, unfortunately, modeled what unhealthy, toxic relationships look like with our exes. And sometimes, even after divorce from toxic situations, we continue in our unhealthy beliefs and approaches to relationships. If we have lost a spouse to death, that trauma may keep us avoiding risking relationships again, or maybe we foster relationships built just on loneliness… Whatever the case, we want the best for our kids… We don’t want them to have to go through the relational struggles that we have. Here’s the thing, if we don’t teach them healthy relationship skills, they will and are learning about relationships from somewhere else… movies, friends, social media…Our kids are always watching, curious, and wondering… so how can we teach them healthy relationship skills when we doubt our abilities to be in healthy relationships. 

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