Poop Stains [brokenness]

***************************************
“You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way,” James 1:2-4.
****************************************

I sat on my kitchen floor, desperately fighting back the tears with a plastic wrap lined diaper in one hand and a squirmy 16 month old in the other. Meanwhile, unnoticed by me, another curious 16 month old was crawling towards all the activity. A toddler was racing through this scene, arms so loaded with trains, he was oblivious to the bizarre experiment I was attempting to direct him around. The twins were sick with diarrhea again and losing weight; no one knew why. “We need to get a stool sample, maybe that will help us figure out what’s wrong,” the doctor told me as though it was as easy as stepping into his office and dropping trou!

“How do we do that, there’s nothing firm to collect in the diapers?” I asked, already figuring I was not going to like the answer.

“Well, you can line their diapers with plastic wrap so the stool won’t absorb into the diaper,” he told me, way too casually to have ever actually performed this sordid feat. “Oh, and make sure not to get any diaper fibers in the sample, that’s important,” he added.

So here I was, attempting to collect liquid scrapings from plastic lined diapers. My breaking point came when William crawled toward me knocking over the vial I had just sat down. It had taken scrapings from three separate diapers just that morning to successfully fill the vial and now I would have to start all over again. I was covered in pooh, my twins were covered in pooh and Tad yelled from the bathroom, ‘Momma dere’s a lil bit a poopy got on da floor. Wipe pease.’ I sat and wept as I watched William’s plastic wrapped diaper oozing its contents down his leg.

Cut to the doctor’s office 45 minutes later, us fairly decontaminated and praying we wouldn’t pass through any revealing black lights and end up a blurb on Dateline. I had underestimated the amount of time it would take to fill a few small vials, so we were late, as usual. Feeling duped by the Johnson & Johnson commercials, one question rang through my head over and over while inhaling a faint odor of pooh, ‘what’s happened to my life?’

I remembered holding classes of teenagers captive with my Psychology lessons, and yet every attempt I made to get my three little boys, all under three, to sit still and wait for a doctor’s appointment, was ending in frustration. In my old life, students used to listen to me and respond to my calm style of discipline. Now I repeat myself 100x a day and calmness is something that only comes before my storm. Bjorn bibs are a necessary fashion accessory for the twins, to help catch erratic throw up bouts. This was NOT the motherhood I had envisioned! I loved being a teacher because I was a seed sower for Him; I saw God using me to help change lives. Now all I changed were endless diapers full of leaked diarrhea and read regret e-mails from every major diaper company as to why their diapers unfortunately were unable to contain diarrhea.

In the past if I needed to learn something, I would research and become well versed. Now there’s no time for research, I have to make decisions in an instant that I’ll doubt for hours. I used to be confident in my God-given talents because I was a successful teacher. Now my confidence was blown every time I went to the doctor’s office. I’d think I had Will and Wyatt’s asthma under control and the doctor’s would look at me disapprovingly for not realizing how bad their airways sounded. They’d tell me not to stop the nebulizer treatments, but increase them to every 3 hours, round the clock, and put the boys on prednisone. They’d hold us captive in the office until the boys sounded well enough to leave. Then they tell me to come back again for another breathing check and a weight check; I feel like a scolded child, again.

My life seemed a perpetual ground hog’s day of dragging sick kids to a doctor’s visit. I was spent and the reserves spent trying to solve all this were dipping well below “E”. Chris’s work schedule was demanding so I was flying solo through a lot of this. One day in the waiting room another mother noticed me, ‘wow, you’ve got your hands full.’ A comment I heard often. “Takes a lot of prayer” I said, hardly even convincing myself.

I noticed she had 2 very young children with her and said, “wow, it looks like you are pretty busy too.” She told me she was there for her baby’s 6 month old check up and meanwhile she had a rambunctious toddler racing around the office. I asked her, “how old is your toddler?” She said, “15 months” and before I had a chance to finish doing the math she said, “yeah, I brought my baby home from the hospital the day he turned one-- Irish twins!” Then she told me she also had a 4 year old son with autism. “He doesn’t talk, or play, all he does is scream. He was just diagnosed.” Immediately my heart broke for her and Wyatt reached up arms out to be held and said, ‘Momma.’ Conviction.

God used that momma and my first 3 years as a reluctant stay at home mom to teach me lessons that had to be learned in brokenness. I learned that His plan for us is not to do it all ourselves. He’s never impressed by my independence, but desires my total dependence on Him and others. He loves it when the body of Christ works together to help bear the burdens and He will accomplish this through whatever means necessary.
He reminded me of all I had to be grateful for and convicted me to begin vocalizing that, even when I didn’t feel it. Convince the head, the heart will follow.

That meant God breaking me down from a strong willed, type A, do it yourself woman into a slobber stained, poop under the fingernails, vulnerable mom. I called my mom, in tears that night, to ask her to fly home from Texas to come stay with us, because I needed help. She later admitted that she was grateful to be able to help because I had always been so independent. She wanted to be needed and I never knew.

From that moment on my mom has been my biggest cheer leader when it comes to my boys. She is super-Mimi flying in (literally) with suitcases full of project materials to make box robots and conduct science experiments. She showed up unannounced to a big outdoor birthday party, dressed in full clown garb, ready to entertain the troops. She comes into town every year for Chris and I to go away, loaded with supplies for a dinosaur fossil hunt and magic show. Oh, and while we were gone she fixed a few things she knows Chris’s schedule won’t allow him to do. Meanwhile, our Papu valiantly holds down the fort at home and work back in Texas, graciously giving up his wife for another jaunt to Maryland.

Now 8 years into this parenting journey, I see God’s sense of humor. Before having children I remember conversations about sharing the gospel in missions work. I was all aboard with one caveat, ‘well as long as it doesn’t smell bad because my nose is really sensitive to gross smells.’ Now I look back and see God saying, ‘oh you can’t serve Me in filth because you’re a sensitive smeller. Let’s see about that.’ Little did I realize He’d bring the filth right to me. The amount of diarrhea I dealt with between my three boys was unlike anything I saw any of my friends experiencing. They would always gawk in amazement at the number of times a day my three boys needed a poop change and report how their children only pooped once a day. I had 3 in diapers simultaneously for a year, my life revolved around poop. Now it all makes sense!

Another giant lesson God is weaving into my life through the fragility of being a mother involved judging. He is breaking down the judgmental attitude I had before my own kids were born and replacing it with compassion. In the past, if I saw a 5 year old using a pacifier I’d silently judge that situation with a ‘oh, someone should take that away’ and be ready with 5 ‘quick fixes’ if the parent solicited help. Now I know that most things are not fixed quickly and God wants to partner with us through these struggles, not just offer escape plans so we appear mainstream.

Instead of judging the parents, compassion wells up inside. I don’t know their story and it’s not my place to cast judgment. So, when I’m tempted to judge, I pray. I pray for that child and the circumstances that have him dependent on a source of comfort traditionally reserved for babies. This child and his crushing circumstances are unknowns to me, but not to God. That child is no more or less precious to God whether he has a pacifier or not. I know that much of my life growing up must have been a magnet for judgment; thankfully as a child I was not aware. My lot was hard enough, I’d like to think that praying Christians, resisting judgment, is what ultimately led me to my Redeemer.

I am learning more about the heart of a Father who loves me enough to allow the tough stuff that brings me closer to Him. These precious poop stained lessons couldn’t have been learned by the confident and successful me. I needed to be broken so that the Father could reform me into His beautiful child, more complete, because His strength is made perfect in every one of my weaknesses.

**********************************************************
“But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it was seemed best to him,”Jer. 18:4 (NIV)
“A transformed woman will embrace the transforming God!” Jer. 31:22.
************************************************************