Lament for the eldest

Every one says you look like me. I am afraid you feel like me, too. You are the oldest, and you take responsibility for things that aren't your fault. When I feel sad and huddle in my bedroom, you think it is because of something you did, or didn't do right. You are a little Mama to your brother and your sisters. You make a killer breakfast already, do my laundry, clean the kitchen up several times a day. You who are just learning long division, you are already a multiplier of love. I see the fear in your eyes, fear that you're not smart enough, or self-disciplined enough, to deserve my love.

I made a lot of mistakes when it came to raising you, my firstborn. I taught you stoicism and now I am trying to undo that. I take you along to my counselor, and she asks you how you feel about my depression. You answer that you don't know. There is this disconnect between events and emotions that I wish I could repair. I have hope for you in ways that I don't have hope for myself...that we got out of it soon enough, before you were scarred beyond repair - that you will be able to change the way your brain works, and learn about feelings before it is too late.

I wish I could lift the burden of "peacemaker" off your small eight-year-old shoulders. I wish, simultaneously, that you could feel less and feel more. That emotions would wear their grooves into your heart, yet you wouldn't take everything to heart.

Did I catch you early enough? Did I recognize the road signs? Did the church already traumatize you beyond help? I am at the Throne early every morning, like it says in Lamentations 2, Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children. I pray for your healing when you bury your thick head of hair into my shoulder and I can feel the sobs welling up inside you but they never are birthed to breathe the air of this world. I wish I had a key to unlock your sorrows so they could be purged and mopped up. Instead you are like a glass jar with a tight lid. Nowhere for the pressure to go. I pray you don't bury it in your own bones.

Written on the prompt "Awake" for 5 Minute Friday

Back to life, back to reality

I feel like I'm floating on a cloud this morning. It is the first day of school for our little homeschool, a job interview looms luminescent this afternoon, and I am still riding high from a long date with my lover for our 9th anniversary. After a difficult 7th year and an 8th year that included some very hard work, we are back in the honeymoon of our love this 9th year.

It's easy to love a man this handsome.

I love this turn of phrase from the Message in I Corinthians 13: "Love takes pleasure in the flowering of truth". This is exactly what I have seen happening in our marriage over the past 3 years, and this year especially in my husband. As he takes the reins of our family in a new and gentler way, and leads us according to his own interactions with God and the Holy Spirit, it is a beautiful thing to watch. I take pleasure in it.

We're squinting through a fog, peering through mist. But it wont' be long before the weather clears and the sun shines brightly! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us. But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. (I Corinthians 13:12-13 The Message)

Who's disobeying?

I plod to the bedroom for what feels like the 100th time and I'm counting slowly, all the way to ten, taking the edge off my biting tongue. SLEEP, child. Again and again I go in, explain, discipline, explain, lie the child back down. It seems endless. He could go on like this for hours (although I cannot). 

It is hard to know, especially with the psychological scars my children bear since my cancer, heart, and now PTSD problems have ripped me away from them to sit in a solitary hospital bed. It's hard to know if it's a real need or a child's disobedience.

There's an easy way to check. As you pull that crying child close, and he melts into your arms, and he asks between sobs for you to cuddle him, try it. Just try laying down and cuddling. My child immediately sucks in the sobs and gives me a wet-cheeked smile. I lay there for 5 minutes, and he is asleep.

Was he being disobedient? After all, he didn't obey my instructions. Or perhaps I was being disobedient in being harsh, unloving, and unwilling to change my naptime plans to lay with my son who was irking me to the core. This is the thought that changes everything. It means a messier house and sometimes meals get on late, but when a need arises, I have to tend to it. That is what makes recovery so hard at home. I have to lay myself down for the sake of Christ (and this family). He gives no caveat in the verses that tell me to take up my cross, or lay myself down as He did. He doesn't say, "Well, this doesn't count because you have an anxiety problem and this is obviously making your problem worse. I'll give you a pass this time. God ahead and be selfish". No. Instead He tugs at my heartstrings, softens my heart, and teaches me more about grace through parenting with each passing year.

No matter what: Faith, hope, love. And the greatest of these is LOVE. (I Corinthians 13:13)

The pain of natural consequences

This morning my son grabbed my teapot, full of water at a full boil, off the stove in a willful bear-hug while I was in the bathroom for a few minutes. The scream brought me running, the kind of scream that only comes when there is true pain. I was reminded of the day he wandered down to the road and nearly got run over by the truck, as I held him tight and forced him to put those burned forearms under the cold tap water for a full 10 minutes. He has a large, bubbly burn (about 2 inches long) and a larger scalded area on one arm. The other arm and hands seem fine.

A verse that makes me wince to read - but has become more meaningful now that there is a boy in this house - is Proverbs 19:18. Here it is, in two different version. How important training is, to teach them safety and moderation!

Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death. (NIV)

Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. (KJV)


And so, this timely repost from the archives:

Around my feet and tugging at my pant legs at any given moment of every day...four little ones who will grow up and perhaps change the course of history. I am one person. I can't do much to change the world. But I can direct the development of four more minds, and that, perhaps, will change the world we live in. With that in mind, I found these six rules in Nightlight for Parents, a book I never really like while I am reading it, but return to again and again. These six guidelines capture the spirit of how I hope to mother, and have aided me many times as I muddle through what to expect of my children and how to teach them so:

1. Define the boundaries clearly and in advance. If you haven't spelled them out, don't try to enforce them!
2. Once a child understands what is expected, hold him accountable. This may lead to a contest of wills - be sure to win those confrontations when they occur.
3. Distinguish between willful defiance and childish irresponsibility. Forgetting, losing, and spilling things are not challenges to adult leadership.
4. Reassure and teach as soon as a time of confrontation is over. By all means, hold your child close and explain lovingly what has just occurred.
5. Avoid impossible demands. Be sure that your child is capable of delivering what you require.
6. Let love be your guide! You will make mistakes with your child, but a relationship characterized by affection and grounded in God's love is certain to be healthy and successful.

Kind of like thinking about earth rather than thinking about heaven, isn't it? If I focus only on myself, I've limited my resources to one life span. But if I direct my energy outward, to others - my children included - I have exponentially increased the impact my life has. Think global. Think eternal. I want to do something that matters each and every day - and that probably doesn't mean "looking out for number 1"!

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Tongues

My Bible fell open to Acts 2 yesterday morning, the scene in which the Holy Spirit descends on the early church  on the Day of Pentecost.  So many times of late, I feel like I am speaking the wrong language...or at least a different one.  I remember a mission trip to Honduras, when I, by some magical interjection of the Holy Spirit into my stubborn brain, demonstrated fluency enough in Spanish to see patients without an interpreter for several whole days at a time.  I remember coming home to the States the next week and trying to speak to a Hispanic patient, and fumbling over a basic word I'd learned many years prior.  That experience taught me that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, at times, with that gift of tongues...that New Testament kind of "tongues" where you actually speak a foreign language and are understood by the person you're speaking to.  If He can do that with my tongue, why now this season of misunderstanding when I'm speaking my very own native language?  He certainly could bridge this gap.  Yet He chooses not to.

The phrase from Isaiah 30 I quoted the other day comes to mind: though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction...not allow, not step out of Satan's way for a moment, but GIVE you.  Is it possible that this, too, is my spanking from the Divine?  Don't I GIVE my children the water of affliction (i.e. punishment) when they are drifting away, or demonstrating foolishness, or thoughtlessness, or stubbornness?  I must humbly accept that this situation may be God's way of drawing me gently back, showing me my error.  It may not be a "simple" misunderstanding.

Yet the Holy Spirit that remains silent in this moment, the Holy Spirit who does not loose my tongue to speak the wisdom I so long for...that same Holy Spirit bathes my soul in comfort through the words I am sent from the pages of my Bible.  That, from Isaiah 30, too: your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.  He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.  For you will render to a man according to his work. (from Psalm 62, emphasis mine)