The Transforming Journey of Truth, Hope, and Love for Single Mothers

By Bev Frank

As a single mother, you may often feel alone and lost on a dark road with no destination. It is a road littered with painful internal wounds and ominous external financial obstacles. It can be a cold bitter journey...but there is another path.

You are not alone. There is a roadmap and a destination. Whether you are a single mother by separation, divorce, or an unwed pregnancy, you can take a transforming personal journey. You will discover the light of truth which exposes all the rough spots on your road, the hope to maneuver these challenges, and the love that leads you to a new path.

I discovered this world while on my own travels as a single mother. Allow me the privilege to walk with you on this amazing transformation through truth, hope, and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475944587

Bev Frank

Bev Frank is a mother in a Half Family. Her only son, who was 3 1/2 at the time of her separation, is now an adult. They both live outside of Seattle, Washington. Based on her first-hand experience with emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual challenges of being a single mother, she wrote The Transforming Journey of Truth, Hope, and Love for Single Mothers. She believes there are no single parents, only single mothers of Half Families who can be made whole through Christ. For more information and resources, please visit www.HalfFamilies.com.

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Copyright © 2012 by Bev Frank.

Edited by Kim Runciman, Night Vision Editing

Cover by Dave Estep, ESTEPWORKS photography

Interior graphics by Anne Gray, Freelance Graphic Designer

Cover model is Michelle Hansson

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Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®,

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,

1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-4457-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4458-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012914720

iUniverse rev. date: 09/19/2012

Contents

Chapter 1 You Are Not Alone

Chapter 2 The Truth about Our External World

Chapter 3 The Self-Truth about Our Internal World

Chapter 4 The Whole Truth Picture

Chapter 5 The Hope Roadmap

Chapter 6 The Hope Roadmap—Crossing the Chasm

Chapter 7 Equipping Our Children for the Journey

Chapter 8 Embracing Forgiveness

Chapter 9 Guiding Our Children to Embrace Forgiveness

Chapter 10 Learning How to Wrap Relationships

Chapter 11 Discovering the Facts that Surround the Cold Hard Facts

Chapter 12 Facing the Cold Hard Facts and the Income Gap

Chapter 13 Creating a Plan for Managing the Cold Hard Facts and Crossing the Income Gap

Chapter 14 Managing the Cold Hard Facts across the Income Gap

Chapter 15 Facing and Conquering Trials

Chapter 16 Reaching the Wholeness Destination

You Are Not Alone

You are not alone.

When I began my journey as a single parent, I thought I was alone. I certainly felt that way the weekend I took my sweet little boy and left my husband of nine years. I remember looking at my three-and-a-half-year-old son and thinking, I can’t do this. I couldn’t imagine raising him by myself. At that moment, memories of the past nine years, the pain of the present and the perception of the overwhelming future responsibilities made me numb.

I was overwhelmed by both the turmoil of emotions arising from the separation from my husband and the magnitude of my economic responsibilities. This situation intensified my sense of being alone as I faced huge problems in desperate need of answers.

The answers were elusive, because I wasn’t only alone, I was lost with no sense of the right direction. My partner was gone. My marriage was gone. I felt like I was on a dark, dangerous road with no roadmap and no destination. I was now a single parent, and I wasn’t prepared for this journey.

It was an all too familiar situation. Like me, millions of women across this country were experiencing similar emotions and pressing financial needs. Unfortunately, that truth still exists today. Whether you are separated, divorced, or an unwed mother, you are either embarking on or currently traveling a new road. It doesn’t matter how you became a single parent; you understand the sense of being alone and lost, not knowing where to step in the darkness.

There is no doubt that it is overwhelming, but know this: you are not alone. You don’t have to be lost on a dark, dangerous road and wander through single parenthood without a destination. On my own journey, I found light for my path and a faithful roadmap which guided me to an amazing destination. Having never remarried, I was still able to nurture my son into adulthood without a partner. Certainly, it wasn’t an easy journey through my personal storm of emotions and financial obstacles. There were many times that I was discouraged or angry or afraid but I was never alone or lost. When I reached my destination and looked back, I saw a path through truth, hope and love which transformed me.

If you are asking yourself, where do I go from here? walk with me and I will show you this path. But be prepared, this journey will twist your brain and challenge your thought processes, beginning with the truth.

The Truth

The truth is the light which exposes what is hidden from us on our path and will be revealed with each step we take on our journey together. But before we look down at our path, I want us to look up at the other women on this road with us. You may have caught glimpses of them. You may even have friends who are single parents, but do you really see them? The reality is that you are probably so busy maneuvering through the day-to-day challenges of single parenting that you have no energy left to see anything or anyone else on the same journey. So I want us to choose to stop a moment and shine a light on the millions of separated, divorced, and unwed single parents traveling next to us.

This truth is starkly revealed in the statistics from research and surveys, beginning with the 2010 U.S. Census. We will look at the single parent label shortly, but for now I want you to note that single parent isn’t a term used in the census survey. Instead, the government categorizes us as a family group, referring to single parents as female householders with children.

According to the 2010 survey, there appears to be over 14 million female households with children in the United States.¹ Unfortunately, this number doesn’t include all of us, because there are millions of women hidden in the shadows who are homeless in this country.² It is a sad truth that over 41 percent of this unfortunate population is composed of one-parent families and the majority of those families are women with children.³ In other words, there could be 2 million single mothers and their children who are homeless.

No one knows the exact number, for many reasons. For many mothers with children, survival is dependent on their anonymity. The truth is the majority of the homeless are hidden in the shadows, not visible standing on street corners. In fact, even in the light, it is difficult to identify these people because there is no uniquely physical characteristic which identifies them as homeless.⁴ The reality is that you may pass a single mother in this situation and not even know it.

The population of female householders with children under eighteen years of age is closer to 16 million. The actual number is not as important as the truth that it reveals. You are not alone. You are part of a large segment of our population that grew by over 50 percent from 2000 to 2010.⁵ So who are these other women? Who is on the same dark road with you?

We are separated, divorced, and unwed mothers. Approximately 19 percent of us are separated, 32 percent are divorced, and 44 percent are unwed.⁶ We encompass many different ages, family sizes, and ethnic backgrounds. Our ages range from twenty to fifty-four, with half us above the age of 34 and half below that age. About 70 percent of us have one to three children under the age of eighteen.⁷ Ethnically, we are predominantly white, African American, and Hispanic.

The truth is that we cut across the fabric of this country, but we have one thing in common—we are single parents. But are we?

The Hope

If we only looked at the harsh statistics, we would be single parents. We see others but we still feel alone and isolated. Why? Because the truth alone isn’t enough; it must be surrounded by hope.

Here is what I have learned and believe in my soul. Too many women are single parents, walking a lonely road without hope. If you are facing the harsh truth about your life every day without hope, you feel single: isolated and alone. You are a parent with no sense of family. You don’t feel like you belong anywhere and you struggle to create a family with your children. You are drained emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Lost, living at survival mode financially, you feel like you are walking in circles, getting bloody from falling over obstacles in the darkness. The truth without hope is a cold, bitter single-parent journey that does not lead anywhere.

When I became a single parent, that label nearly destroyed me. I wasn’t single, I had a child. I no longer related to the single lifestyle. I was a parent, but I was more than that. When I was married, my husband, son and I were a family. Even though I was divorced, my son and I were still a family. I wasn’t a single parent. That was a label that society had conveniently given me. I had been categorized and stereotyped, but it wasn’t me.

It was only when I began to see myself through Jesus’ eyes that I found the hope which surrounded the truth. He didn’t dismiss the truth of my situation, but rather gave me a way to walk in it. There was no escape from the reality that my divorce split my family in two. My partner was now gone. But I wasn’t single; I was a half of what used to be a whole family. I was still part of a family, a Half Family. In that simple distinction, I found hope . . . that I could be whole.

It empowered me to keep walking forward. Hope doesn’t change the fact that our road is challenging and filled with obstacles. Certainly, the Half Family road is difficult, but you won’t get bloody from walking in circles in the dark. Unlike a single parent, the mother in the Half Family has the hope to maneuver the road and learn to live beyond mere survival. This hope empowers you emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually and shows you a way around or through all the obstacles on your path and reveals the love to reach the wholeness destination.

The Love

As a mother in the Half Family, you will face the truth about your situation, access the hope to guide you on this harsh road, but it is love that leads you to your destination—wholeness.

It truly is the key to successfully reaching our wholeness destination. However, heavenly love is on the opposite end of the spectrum from any earthly perception of love, and the only way to access this heavenly love is through Jesus Christ. His love will forgive you, heal you, encourage you, walk with you, carry you, and bless you . . . and you will never be alone or lost.

Do you believe that? If you do, this journey will be an affirmation and encouragement for you. If you aren’t on board with this approach, I understand.

You may have a passing understanding of Jesus, you may have even been in church, or you may have rejected the whole idea of Jesus as God. No matter where you are at this moment, I truly believe it is no accident you are reading this book. I believe it is a divine appointment with Jesus. Please don’t walk away from that appointment. Make a decision to keep an open mind and come on this Half Family journey with me.

There was a point in my life when I walked away from my relationship with Jesus, but in my despair I was drawn back to his love. In his grace and mercy, he met me right where I was in my pain, turmoil, and regret. Just like me, you will discover Jesus will meet you exactly where you are. My guess is you have tried everything else to survive the single parent journey and that is all you are doing: surviving a cold, bitter existence. Why not try a different road? What have you got to lose? Here is what you will gain: if you accept Jesus as your anointed (Messiah) deliverer (Savior), you will gain a companion who will never leave you. His love has already overcome anything the world can throw in your path that would keep you from reaching wholeness.

So what is wholeness? What does this destination look like? Even though I have been there, I can’t share that information with you right now. Much like reading the last page of a book (don’t do it), if I were to tell you about wholeness before you take the journey, it would make no sense to you.

But I can share a few things about the journey. For me, it was brutal, painful, frightening, inspiring, full of joy, and an incredible learning experience. I am not the same woman who started down this road more than thirty years ago. I made hundreds of mistakes causing me to stumble, fall, and crawl along the way. I have struggled to get back up, choosing sometimes to just sit in the middle of the road. I walked through crippling emotions and devastating trials, which on the other side actually revealed the spectacular beauty of a road that was once dark for me. The only constant in those years was the truth, hope, and love that kept me moving forward.

That forward movement has always been one step at a time. There is no skipping, running, or jumping ahead allowed on this journey. There are no magic wands to solve the problems that you will encounter on the road, and I don’t have all the answers to your questions or solutions to your problems. Nor would I want to provide this information, because this Half Family journey is personal for each of us. All I have are the lessons I have learned from my own travels.

So if you choose to journey with me, we will take one step at a time. Do not expect to embark on our travels immediately, because we need to do some preparation. First, we must shine a big light on the true condition of our road. Once we have that truth, the Whole Truth, we will equip ourselves with a roadmap for the journey, the Hope Roadmap. It has been created specifically for you, the mother in the Half Family. Only then will we be ready to begin the journey through the tough spots on the road we all have in common.

If you are ready to leave behind your single parenthood, we will begin this transformation with shredding the label. You are no longer a single parent. You are now a single mother ready to take the transforming journey of truth, hope, and love which leads to wholeness.

The Half Family Cheat Sheet

I think that every mother in the Half Family needs a cheat sheet. Sometimes on my own journey, I found it difficult to remember all my tasks, to keep priorities straight, etc. My brain was so cluttered that I would write myself notes. Those little notes were cheat sheets for my journey. Normally, that little written reminder would trigger the right path in my brain. So you will find a cheat sheet at the end of each chapter that I hope is helpful.

CHEAT SHEET

You Are Not Alone

The Truth

1. There are millions of other single parents on the same road.

2. Single parents are separated, divorced, or unwed mothers composed of diverse ages, family sizes, and nationalities.

The Hope

1. Hope is the difference between a single parent and a mother in a Half Family.

2. Hope provides a roadmap.

The Love

1. A Half Family becomes whole through the love of Jesus.

2. Love will lead us to our destination.

The Truth about Our External World

With the hope that we are not alone, we are ready to shine light on the Whole Truth about our lives as single mothers. You may think you already know the truth about your life and that I’m not going to share anything with you that you don’t know first-hand. You know the economic challenges of raising a child or children on your own and the range of emotions that can torment you. But those truths represent only part of the condition of your road. Do you see the Whole Truth?

Before you answer that question, I want you to think about the Whole Truth Picture as a mosaic. A mosaic is made up of many small pieces of colored glass or stone, which form a picture. If you stand too close to a mosaic, all you see are the individual pieces of glass or stone in no recognizable pattern. You know that you are looking at a mosaic, but you can’t see the image. Only when you stand at a distance do all those individual pieces form a clear picture.

The Whole Truth Picture for a single mother is like a mosaic. We are sometimes so close to the fragments of our lives and our shattered emotions that we don’t see the full picture. We see only the small, dark-colored stones of truth. If you choose to take this journey, it is imperative you see the picture, not just the stones in front of you.

I spent many years ignorant of the Whole Truth. As a result, I stumbled over the stones that I did not see on my dark road. Part of me didn’t want to see the extent of this road because it was so painful. If the pieces of the truth were painful, I feared the Whole Truth would kill me.

You may feel the same and have a strong desire to skip lightly over this part of the journey. In fact, you may want to ignore some of the truth about your life as a single mother. You may think that if you ignore the truth, it will just go away. It won’t. At some point on the road, you will come face to face with the truth. Ignoring it only delays the inevitable encounter and you risk the pain from stumbling over it in the dark as I did.

No doubt, it is also difficult to view the Whole Truth picture. Therefore, to minimize some of the pain, I’m not going to expose the entire road all at once. Instead, we will shine a light on one cluster of stones or one boulder at a time. As we examine the truth about each aspect of our lives, the stones will begin to reveal the mosaic that was always there. We simply were standing too close to see the Whole Truth Picture.

What Is the External World of a Single Mother?

The first cluster of stones on our road is the truth about our external world. What is the external world of a single mother? What does this part of the road look like? The answer is really a no-brainer for any mother who struggles to financially support a child or children. Our external world is made up of those economic challenges all mothers who are raising a child or children alone face. These challenges can just be stones in the path or boulders that block all forward movement.

I would define our external world as minimum income and maximum expenses. Each day, each week, and each month, we are challenged to stretch our money to meet bills. We live in an external world where the simple act of buying groceries or paying the electric bill can be financially challenging. Bills like the rent or a mortgage are worse and appear as boulders that block our path. Clearly, I’m not defining anything that you don’t already know, but the truth about the financial condition of the road encompasses more than money or bills. The truth is larger. Therefore, we need to take one step back from this narrow focus and view three truths about minimum income and maximum expenses.

The Truth

It’s Not Personal

That’s right. If you face a road of minimum income and maximum expenses, it’s not personal. Here is what I mean by that: I have traveled this difficult, sometimes impossible road of economic challenges. As a single mother in the dark, I have faced huge boulders in my way, and it was personal to me. When I was sitting at my kitchen table trying to decide between buying groceries and paying my electric bill, it was personal. It was very personal. We live in an obscenely rich country. Why should I be in this position? With a grocery store on almost every corner, how could my son and I be faced with hunger? My financial situation made me feel single: isolated and alone.

But the truth is, millions of women and children across this country face this same dilemma every day. I wasn’t the only woman facing economic challenges. Unfortunately, that truth was a nice fact, but the daily financial struggle was still personal to me. No matter how hard I worked, I could not pay some bill or buy some necessity. It felt personal. That may be how I felt, but I was missing the hard truth about the condition of the road. The majority of us face minimum income and maximum expenses. I know it is extremely difficult to accept that it’s not personal. Frankly, acceptance of this truth is a process. We will need to walk together for a while. But you will reach a point where you move beyond just understanding this truth and accept that it is not personal. It’s just a Cold Hard Fact.

The Cold Hard Facts

These Cold Hard Facts are scattered in front of us on this strange new road. There is nothing personal about it. The Cold Hard Facts don’t care whether we are separated, divorced, or an unwed mother. Race doesn’t matter because the Cold Hard Facts are colorblind. The Cold Hard Facts don’t respect age or the size of your family.

But what are the Cold Hard Facts of minimum income and maximum expenses? What does that picture look like? Now, those may sound like silly questions. Of course, you know the truth. You live with it every day. But are you standing so close to your daily, very personal financial struggle that you don’t see the truth about this part of the road? If you can relate to my experience, I am sure the answer is yes.

So if you want to stop falling over the Cold Hard Facts in the dark, you have to face them in the light. That is what we’re going to do. We will look at the black and white statistics that represent the truth about income and expenses that the majority of us have in common.

To effectively frame up this picture, we will first compare the income and expenses of a married family unit to our Half Family unit. The economic condition of these two family groups couldn’t be more different. Our road stands in stark contrast to the road of married women. Remember, you are not alone. It is not personal.

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It is overwhelming. In fact, you may have glazed over some of the information because this comparison was just too painfully close to your current situation. I understand. It may seem strange right now, but facing these painful facts in the light is the first step in accepting it’s not personal, and learning to manage these Cold Hard Facts instead of getting bloody falling over them on a dark road.

This comparison only reveals the frame of our picture. Our next step in this truth journey is to examine each statistic, each dark-colored stone so that we can create our mosaic of minimum income and maximum expenses.

Income

Let’s start with a more intimate look at annual incomes. We know that 80 percent of single mothers have incomes of less than $50,000. The dark side of this stone, this Cold Hard Fact, is that 40 percent of single mothers have an income at or below the poverty level.¹⁶ The poverty level for a family of three is $17,285.¹⁷ Of the women not at the poverty line, 10 percent have incomes between $18,000 and $25,000 annually, another 20 percent are between $26,000 and $40,000, and only 10 percent are between $41,000 and $50,000. A slim 12 percent of single mothers have incomes between $51,000 and $75,000. A very fortunate 8 percent of women have an income level greater than $75,000, which is a huge contrast to 51 percent of married couples in that situation.¹⁸ The painful reality is that the majority of single mothers have minimum incomes. To really understand our plight, we need to look at our financial resources.

Child Support

Unfortunately, there is a common perception that single mothers receive child support payments, and that this income is adequate to support a family. Nothing could be further from the truth. As of March 2010, only about 30 percent of single mothers received child support.¹⁹ Of this 30 percent of women, about 46 percent of them actually received the total amount owed. Sadly, child support payments are a very unstable source of income. Even though enforcement of child support agreements has improved dramatically in the last decade, there are billions of dollars in uncollected child support payments. This source of income could provide much needed assistance to poor single mothers. But the average annual amount of child support for single mothers who have support agreements is $4,395. The hard truth is that 70 percent of single mothers receive no child support income.²⁰

Government Assistance

Given the staggering poverty rate among single mothers, another source of income should be government assistance. Again, the perception is not close to reality. Most of the single mothers in need of government assistance are familiar with the federal Food Stamp Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The Food Stamp Program is now called the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and is administered through the federal government. While a single mother does not receive cash for food, she does receive vouchers, which can be used at any grocery store.

SNAP is the most widely used government assistance program by single mothers. About 40 percent of single mothers do or have used this program, receiving an estimated average of $393 per month for households. Eligibility for participation in the program requires a single mother to be at or below the poverty level based on a calculation that allows certain deductions from the monthly income.²¹

TANF was established as a result of a new welfare law passed in 1996 and is administered through each state. The program provides income assistance to needy families for a period of time, which can include assistance for childcare, medical care, etc. Participation is very small, less than 1 percent of one-parent families in 2010.²² This low number is understandable based on the strict work-first requirements to be eligible for TANF grants. Often poverty-stricken women want to utilize TANF grants to further their education, but are faced with juggling the work requirement of about thirty hours a week, attending school, and taking care of their children. Also, when unemployment is high, the possibility of finding and keeping employment declines significantly for the unskilled single mother, and so does their ability to qualify for TANF decline. For the single mothers who do qualify for TANF, the monthly cash benefit for a family of three averages about $674. Since this program is regulated at a state level, the actual amounts vary per state. But to put this amount in perspective, $674 a month is 47 percent below the government’s established poverty level.²³

Wages

The majority of single mothers are working to support their families. We only need to look at the statistics on incomes to realize 40 percent of working women are making at or below $17,285. At the high end, that equates to $8.56 per hour. Another 10 percent of single mothers earn between $18,000 and $25,000 annually, or $8.65 to $12.00 per hour. Even at $40,000 annually, a woman is earning $19.22 per hour, which probably sounds like a fortune to a woman at poverty level. However, it can still be challenging to stretch this income to meet expenses. The truth is, the overwhelming majority of single mothers face minimum income and maximum expenses.

Expenses

We face the challenge of taking that minimal amount of income to pay the maximum amount of bills. Or as I like to say, How do you stretch nothing into something? So let’s look at these stones on the road by examining five major areas of expenses that most of us have in common. Those expenses are housing, food, childcare, transportation, and health insurance.

Housing

Housing has always created the biggest challenge for me because it consumes the largest portion of my income. Whether you are part of the 49 percent who own a home or the 51 percent who rent a home, either choice represents a possible 40 to 50 percent of your income being diverted to pay for housing. But there is more to this Cold Hard Fact just below the surface of this large, dark-colored stone. About 54 percent of homeowners pay a mortgage between $700 and $2,400 per month and 50 percent of renters pay between $700 and $1,500 per month.²⁴ Even on the low end, these expenses can be huge boulders in the path of a single mother. With an income of $25,000 annually, a $700 monthly payment to