Limps VS Struts (Growth)

“While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God,” Hebrews 12:10-11.
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(this post was missing but i just realized i had left it in draft form by mistake, so i clicked publish)

Mothering was zapping all my resources. Uncertainty seemed to wrap around every decision I made. Confidence was a thing of the distant past that seemed to only mock me now as a mother to three little boys all under 2. I wanted to go back to simpler times---being newly married to my best friend, working in a career that was full of reward, hanging out with friends whoopin’ it up till the wee hours of the night, shopping sprees, going out to eat, Saturday mornings spent sleeping in then playing tennis, apartment living with no maintenance….quite simply, back to the life that was all about me and Chris. I wanted be able to watch Johnson and Johnson baby commercials without skepticism, back to the time when I dreamed of all the joys life held when it contained a home of our own and children. I wanted the dream without the reality and was bitter at the miring disillusionment which was showing no signs of releasing its strangle hold.

My home was not the place I’d known the previous 7 years of marriage before children. The home Chris and I had worked so hard to create, a home life I’d always dreamed of with skeptical optimism, was slipping away into chaos, diapers, exhaustion and sick babies. Doing the work of maintaining our marriage was taking a back seat to the pressing demands of our babies. Fear set in because the place of hope I had known the last 7 years, a home that I longed to return to at the end of the day, now seemed to be morphing into a giant ball of stress and fatigue. The question that haunted my mind while sitting up with sick babies in the middle of the night was, ‘how far of a slip was it from where I was to the home life I had known growing up?’

Growing up, home was a place where hiding was the safest, thus most appealing option. There were far too many visits from Social Services, police and other well intended, but somber faced, bad news bearing officials. College was my break free and fly time. I was the first person in my entire family to attend college---so the waters were unchartered, but full of promise and I hoped my ticket out. And that’s exactly what college was for me—an escape and a soft place to land. It was there, in that soft spot, that I also realized my need of a Savior to rescue me from the mess I had grown up in, not a college degree.

Chris and I married ¾ of the way through my college years. We created a sweet little home for ourselves in a one bedroom/bath apartment full of GoodWill furniture and a lot of joy. I was so excited to know that life could be full of promise and home could be a place you anticipated returning to with joy instead of fear and anxiety. Looking back, I think God gave me those pain free years, college through the first 7 years of marriage, as a soul strengthening time. A time to plant my feet solidly in His kingdom before He would begin to turn my world upside down as the mother to three little boys in a year and a half time frame. Life would never be so neat and manageable again. Predictability was out the window when Curious George x 3 lives at your house!

I look back now on those years of transition and know God was doing a great work in my life. Not one I signed up for, but a great work none the less. Growing more into who God desires me to be is not a pain free process. Before those years of life with babies, I knew how to live in pain apart from God (growing up), and I knew how to live a life of peace with God (college-marriage before kids) and now I had to learn how to live ALL of life with God. Walking with God did not mean I would be spared the turmoils of life; it meant He longed to develop his fruit of the spirit which needs as its fertile growing soil some pretty sordid times. I shouldn’t have been surprised by this---God’s finest creation in Genesis begins with dirt.

Rick Warren suggests God would rather His children have a perpetual limp from a thorn He’s given, to a perpetual strut of independence. God knew my dependence had grown on my own ability to rise up and meet each challenge square in the face and He needed to teach me that it was not by my strength that I had been set free. There would be challenges that, regardless of my ‘pull yourself up by your boostraps’ mentality, I would not be able to meet on my own. He was teaching me to hold onto Him, which meant letting go of the fairy tale that two people who loved each other and God would avoid miserable times in life.

Contemporary worship music has been a consistent component in my journey to know God more. Sara Groves ranks up there as one of my favorites primarily because of her honesty. Her music has an incredible truth telling quality about it that cattle prods my selfish heart straight to His refining hand more times than I’d like to admit. She reveals God’s kingdom in our lives when we’d chose our own comfort over His character development.

“Painting Pictures in Egypt” revealed my desire to have my kingdom grown, not God’s in me. Sarah recounts how the Israelites pined for the very slavery they had begged for release from while they journeyed in the desert. That passage of Scripture has always struck me as ironic, the Israelites begged Moses ‘take us back.’ I found myself pining for simpler times that didn’t require so much of me. God was teaching me during these broken years (see “Poop Stained Lessons” devotional) to know Him more in the path I’d chosen. I’d sing/shout these lyrics in the car as an offering and acceptance of where I was as a mother. (I still love this song and smile everytime the twins join in singing it with me from the backseat!)
“I don’t want to leave here, I don’t want to stay. Feels like pinching to me either way. And the places I long for the most are the places where I’ve been, they are calling out to me like a long lost friend. It’s not about losing about faith, it’s not about trust. It’s all about comfortable, when you move so much. And the place I was wasn’t perfect, but I had found a way to live. It wasn’t milk or honey, but then neither is this. I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt. Leaving out what it lacked. The future feels so hard and I wanna go back. But the places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I’ve learned. Those roads are closed off to me while my back was turned.”

Brookeside: disappointment

 

I  pledged to start taking some breaks...yeah, simple no brainer right.  There's a reason God commands us to rest.  For some people that's easy.  For Type A's...not so much!   What seems easier than the discipline required to institute rest is to constantly tackle the piles accumulating:  piles of emails, texts, biz inquiries, vendors to get back with, doc appnts, client meetings, sports schedules, car repairs, etc. ad nauseum.    Good becomes the enemy of the best.  Then we are stressed out and asking God to relieve our stress....Hum,  wonder if He's thinking, 'yeah, I told you you would need rest and commanded you to do so.  Did you think I made you to go non-stop and was joking about that day of rest?  It's simple, be still, and know that I am God.'

Turning off the constant pings of distraction, for just a little portion of each week, to be able to focus, undivided,  on the moments of memories that need to be made---this is my goal!  The twins just celebrated their 9th birthday---yikes!  I peeked in on Wyatt the other day and saw him looking at a photo album in his room.  I sidled up next to him and we talked about the memories in his book.  It was hilarious and touching to see what he remembered, the things that had made the biggest impact on him.  They weren't the grander things that you might expect...they were pretty simple. 

  

While we looked I was struck by the fact that for the first time ever in my life I was not immediately able to tell the twins apart in every photo from their baby/toddler years.  Yes, time is passing and memories fade, but that was a bit alarming to me.  It tells me how fast time is going and if I'm not careful I'll blink and it'll be passed in piles that were managed while real life that He came to reveal is missed.

(who us?  we didn't do it!)

I played a game of Whack a Mole with the twins (Tad was on a trip with Chris).  I told them I wanted to take their picture quickly when we were done the game.   The picture quickly turned into wrestling, as it always does, but what they also started the same head nuzzling they've been doing since they were babies...I had just seen this in photographs I looked at with Wyatt and here they were still doing it almost 9 years later! 

This struck me because I had just had a session with a client with all adult children days earlier.  At one point the only girl in the family started nuzzling her brother in a way that so reminded me of what my boys do....I realized I might still be taking this same picture 15 years from now!!  Cool!!

 

(blue dragon flies who must be best friends!)

So, I decided to take the boys to Brookeside Gardens.  Unlikely place to take little boys, I know.  However, my boys are all about the outdoors and exploring.  Wyatt Pete especially is like a little Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter.  He comes running to me with butterflies, bees, baby bunnies, lizards and baby birds all the time.  He loves the net his Mimi made him when he's not catching wild life with his hands.   

 

(look in the 4:00 position---see the turtle approaching his net while he waits patiently!)

I'd heard that Brookeside Gardens is a place where there are gorgeous gardens (which I knew the boys wouldn't care about) but also the place was full of butterflies which would land right on you!  The boys would love this!   So we ventured out!

About 2/3rds into the hour trip I started seeing lots of downed trees and traffic lights out.  The high heat (been 100 degrees lately) had caused some bad storms two days earlier.  Uh oh, this wasn't looking good! 

(2nd turtle of the day!  Sorry little fella, I apologize ahead of time for the gentle mauling you are about to receive.   I promise you they mean you no harm and they come in peace!)

We continued on and decided to make an adventure out of it and hope for the best.  We entered one area to find yellow caution tape and cones blocking off the road in to the gardens. :(   We stopped a runner who told us how we could get into the park--yay!!

We drove right in (no sneaking in required--yay!!)  Power was out which meant no visitor center, no problem, we were going to find the magical place where butterflies would land right on us.  After exploring for about 1/2 hour we learned from other visitors those butterflies are housed in a conservatory which was closed b/c of the power/heat.  hum....would i have 3 boys melt down over disappointment or could we use this?

A wonderful mother told us about a pond with a gazebo where they go to try and catch frogs and turtles.  We were so on it!   While we walked we talked about the true measure of a person's maturity is how they handle disappointment in life.  We can be complaining grumblers who tantrum when life hands us lemons or we can do what God calls us to:  "in all things find gratefulness."


It was time to make some lemonade from our lemons!




I knew I had to set the tone by speaking the blessing we were in and I found the boys follow suit.  One of those really proud momma moments.   The boys ran around yelling, "Momma come get a picture of the turtles in the water...the dragonflies...Momma there's a blue tree--did you ever see such a thing?"

 

(not long before we were leaving we found the closed butterfly conservatory---we could see hundreds of them all from the outside!!!  Yes, Wyatt longed to hold this little guy, but I think the lil guy is happy the glass is there keeping us out!)

It didn't take long at the pond before Wyatt decided he NEEDED to go into the pond to catch a fish or turtle with his net.   Cut to him going in in his boxers (aka shorts left over from his toddler years that will stay up on his skinny butt@). 

He was grinning and in his glory, patiently waiting for the fish and turtles to come to him. 

I told him we were going to leave his boxers there, rather than carry them full of stinky pond water back with us.   We were all dripping sweat and I couldn't bring myself to bring those back, sorry mother earth!  


I laughed when I noticed the boxers/shorts were size 3T, still fitting Wyatt's little waist!!!

I felt God's little whisper, 'Jennifer, remember how much time you wasted worrying about your boys who, no matter how much they ate, refused to gain weight at the 'normal' rate?   Are they lacking or are they living the life you dreamed of for your children?' 

 

I could hear that little voice because I was stopped just watching the boys play and soaking in the blessing of God.   Many voices/pings will crowd Him out....not today!

When I told Wyatt we were leaving his boxers he said, "ok Momma, maybe when I'm a dad I'll come here  with my kids some day and we'll see my boxers and I'll tell them about how I got into the pond and caught a turtle here."  

I hope you do! And when you have a choice to sit it out or dance...i hope you dance!