Stories: Julie, A Former Single Mom and Parenting Alone Volunteer

I got married in my 20s, and then found myself a few years later divorced with a 9 month old baby.  Financially, I had a good job and knew I could support us. But I was a wreck spiritually and emotionally, and didn’t really know what to do during those first few years after the divorce. I felt like a failure:  I had failed my parents, because they had been married for over 30 years; I failed my marriage, because I couldn’t make it work; I failed my daughter, because I grew up in a home where I had parents who were  loving. I also felt like I failed God, because I had married for a lifetime. That was one of my biggest struggles going through the divorce and on the other side of the divorce—feeling like a failure, feeling alone, feeling isolated, not knowing who to turn to to gather that emotional and spiritual support.
 
I was a Christian, even though we had not gone to church as a couple, and I still felt a bond to the church I had been attending, but there were no places I could plug into; I remember looking at the places I could plug into, and feeling like an outsider. I joined the women's Bible class at one point, and through a big sister/little sister program they had, an older lady mentored me through my walk the next few years. In the Bible class, they asked if we wanted to be paired up with an older woman. So I filled out a profile, never dreaming I would be paired up with someone who had been divorced. I was actually upset, feeling like I had been pigeon-holed in a separate group of people. But she was a wonderful woman, about 10 years older than me, and was able to walk alongside me during those years, encouraging me in the day to day stuff of life that you get bogged down in as a single parent.
 
Years after coming through the divorce, I remember thinking this was the place I wanted to give back to: to single parents. I remember looking through the non-profits at what was out there, and there weren't a whole lot of resources. When I heard about Parenting Alone, I thought “this is it!” The burning desire I’ve had is to walk alongside those single parents and empower that single mom, so they know there are people around them to encourage them during that time following the divorce.
 
One of the key aspects of Parenting Alone ministry is to raise up an army of folks who want to give back, walking alongside single parents, volunteering at the center, helping with resources, there’s so much we can do. That’s what Parenting Alone is about, being a resource—not just the resource of things, but the resource of people.
 
My daughter  was 9 months old when we divorced. I think the thing I would have wanted for her, the thing that was missing for her, was a place to be plugged into, where she didn’t feel alone. There’s an “aloneness” whether you are a single parent of a child of divorce. That’s something we are trying to focus on in the Parenting Alone center, a whole area for kids and resources for kids. We want to touch the kids; we want to break the cycle. The cycle needs to be broken.
 
Parenting Alone is important because divorce is in our society, and it’s not a pretty thing. It’s a lonely event that can happen. When marital restoration can happen, that’s what we want, but when it doesn’t happen, Parenting Alone is there to provide tools necessary for single parents to move on in their lives, providing people to help them and build those bridges and restore their lives, their whole family life. I envision a Parenting Alone center as a warm place with people there to help assess crisis situations, figuring out what tools the parent and family need, and having an advocate family to walk alongside them. It’s not a hand out, but a hand up.