Happy Saturday!

The sun is shining through the windows, and my house is QUIET... This is NEVER the case, especially on a Saturday!!  All 4 kiddies were asked to spend the night at a friend's house last night.  The funny thing is that the 2 youngest kids are together at one house, and the 2 older girls are together at one house.  Patrick and I had a wonderful, needed Friday night all to ourselves!!  It was a spectacular gift of ABUNDANCE!!!

What are YOU doing with this weekend?  It's DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!!  I love it when we spring forward with the clocks.  The days are lighter longer which is such a delight.

Last week brought so many great times to our family.  Maddie got the news that she got a spot in the middle school honor choir for the school district, Meredith sang at her honor choir concert, Marky got offered a regular babysitting job for the summer, Michael had a soccer game which they won 11-1.  It was a week of blessing for all of the kiddos!!  Most of them spent the week doing some standardized testing at school. This isn't their favorite thing, but at least they didn't have regular homework during the week.

It was a good family week.  Good doesn't mean perfect.  We had plenty of times where some necks needed to be wrung!!  But, here's the thing.  Around here we forgive, we love, we keep forgiving, we keep loving.  Even when there are rocky days and hard moments, we stay and we fight for each other.  Nobody runs away.  Nobody gets cut loose. We are family and we're all in this together. And whenever I feel lost and wonder what God's will for our family is I go to this verse...  

"Be joyful always; Pray continually; Give thanks in all circumstances for THIS is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

The Hangover

It's like that time when I partied with Jose.  Or that other time when the Absolut and I went around the dance floor one too many times.

Hung Over.

Except this was different.

This involved my heart.  And her heart.  And just like the times when I've indulged too much on the spirits, I have felt the ache in my head and the pit  in my stomach for more than a day now.

I never wanted to be a mom who yelled or screamed.  And I haven't been.  I am happy to report that I usually maintain control when dealing with my kids.   I can be firm,  I can be stern, but I've never crossed the line to being mean.

My teenager told me I was being mean.  Yelled it at me.  She was probably right.  But...

How can she not know how tired I am of this issue?  How can she not see the white flag that hangs out of my pocket, asking to be raised at any moment?  When do I get to lay my head down at night with peace, knowing that she is responding to my parenting, to my role in her life?

I let the words fly.  I didn't edit or revise.  Days, months, years in the past, when this issue has previously come up I somehow had the grace in my heart to hold back.  Not now.  It needed to be louder... this time.  It needed to be forceful.  I needed to scream it so she heard it... this time.  It was ugly, and it was awful.  I hated every second, and I couldn't stop.  I felt an urgency to make her understand my exhaustion from this cyclical behavior.  There was an intensity pushing my forward into a world of thoughts and words that had never been expressed.  I had been pushed too far, too many times and this time...  I exploded.    
 
I've loathed myself.  I've confessed to both she and the Lord.  I've cried and prayed.  My heart is still hurting over the things she said to me, retorts I hurled back at her.  But why am I the only one apologizing?  Who cares about the bruises on my mother-ego?

Days later, I'm hungover.  With doubt and with regret; experiencing the unpleasant, symptoms of the
S-word.  Shame.

Shame that I could fail so badly.  Shame that I could feel so un-loving towards my child.  Shame that I feel hatred and sadness and failure.  Shame that I didn't handle things better. Shame that I'm not a more equipped mom, more spiritual in my expressions, more self-controlled when tempted to lose it.

 I expect so much of myself.  I expect that I won't ever get out of control and say things I will regret.  I expect that I will continue to put on a happy face even when I'm angry and disappointed and frustrated.  Everyone has a breaking point. Everyone can only be pushed so far before they crack wide open.  My high expectations of myself are the strength of my mothering - I don't crack very often.  I always tell myself "You've been through much harder things than a kid's disobedience".  So I pull myself up by my bootstraps and handle things "gracefully".  "Perfectly".  Well, that's a facade as flimsy as a snowflake, revealing the greatest weakness of my mothering - I want to be the perfect mom.  I want to hit home-runs in every conflict, win blue-ribbons in every battle.  I know the foolishness of my lofty goals.  I understand the ridiculous efforts behind my desire.  Yet I still try. Failure isn't an option.  Or at least it wasn't until now.  Today, I realize that actually, I can fail.  I can fall.  I can blow it.  I can reach the end of my rope because God's Word promises that my end was always the place that He wanted me at.  He wants me at my weakest, so that He can show up with His strength.  Because THIS is where the grace resides.  Not in MY perfection, but in HIS.  In fact, 2 Corinthians 12:9 says that "His power is made perfect in weakness."  It doesn't say that His power is made in MY perfection.  That perfection is a phantom place of lies and pride and sin,  where I feel FAKE power and FAKE strength.  That isn't what I want.  What I want is God's REAL power and strength coming to me in my weakest, most honest place of need.

By God's grace, my hangover is gradually subsiding.  I am finding comfort in the wisdom of others, the healing of love, and the benefit of time passing. My girl and I are going to be okay.   I hope to take this awful experience and learn some new things about conflict, about myself, about my kids.   I hope to take what happened between my daughter and I and use it to revamp my skewed expectations of myself as well as handle things more calmly next time.  Because I know that I will be here again.   I also know that God's love and power will be here again and again.  It won't run out.  "That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10

Storms

The snow started pouring down.  Heavy, wet flakes that I didn't know were coming.   My 16 year old  was supposed to be somewhere about an hour later, and I was concerned that the visibility, that kept getting worse, would be too much for her inexperienced driving self.  I called my husband and let him know of my concerns, asking if I should drive her instead.  "Nah" he said.  "This will pass". 

 

And... he was right.

 

In less than 15 minutes, the snow had stopped, visibility was restored, and my worries about her being out driving subsided. 

 

It didn't take me long to apply this scenario to life. 



 

The truth about me is that I tend to see the heavy flakes coming down in front of me and that is all I can see.  I get  anxious and fearful about the lack of visibility. I worry about the treacherous path in front of me.  I react to the immediate rather than waiting.  I usually don't even think about the possibility (probability!) of the storm passing. 

 

My smart hubby knows something about waiting for a minute to watch what the weather does.  He trusts in the passing of time.  He recognizes that most weather patterns shift pretty quickly. I tend to think that I'm going to be in this storm "FOREVER"! That this is the "WORST STORM EVER"!! I get caught up in immediate solutions - "What are we going to do about this NOW??" rather than "Let's pause and wait and see what happens."  

 

The truth is, I never really see the benefits of the storms.  I would prefer that the weather be calm and peaceful and never-changing.  I would like there to be nice weather now, AND nice weather predicted.  I found a great verse in Nahum 1:3 that is encouraging to me.  The whole chapter talks about the Lord's feelings towards a city that was misbehaving in a big way.  The verses describe the Lord as powerful, one who will demand obedience, but also a God who is full of love and patience.  Tucked into the passage in verse 3 it says that "the Lord displays his POWER in the whirlwind and the storm".  Well.  WOW.  This is saying to me that the storm has value.  It has purpose.  It is where God's POWER is displayed. 

 

Verse 7 says "The Lord is good, a strong refuge when trouble(STORMS) comes. 

He is close to those who trust in Him". 

 

 God is POWERFUL in the storm and  He is PRESENT in the storm.  How much I will miss if I avoid the storms.  If I run in the opposite direction of the storm.  If I whine and complain throughout the storm.  When I trust Him in the storm, He will get me to the other side of the storm with His power and His presence. 

 

 

"The storm will pass". 

 

"Just wait".