Parenting

You know, being a parent is not for the faint at heart. This month my youngest turned 18 and I realize, I have second guessed myself pretty much every step of the way. 

I was not a young girl who dreamed of becoming a mother. To be completely honest, I never really thought about it. As a teenager I took babysitting jobs because I needed to make money, I wasn't really equipped for the job, truth be told. Siblings would fight and I'd introduce an art project. Tears would flow and I'd dig around in my bag for a craft to distract. I had basically one answer to all babysitting dilemmas, do an art project!  Honestly, it got me through. Even once I had my own children crafts and art projects were VERY often pulled out to entertain, to distract, and to soothe. But of course they could only take me so far. I had very little equipping to support the title of "mother".

Somewhere around the time that Alex was 2 or so our church was facilitating parenting classes which Daniel and I readily signed up for. We were meant to shepherd our children's hearts and also not let them get away with murder. One of the methods prescribed was that of 3 chances. The first infraction on the part of the child received a warning, the 2nd a firm rebuke and the 3rd was either "time out" or a spanking, whichever the infraction warranted. I dreaded it all. I'm pretty sure that in the realm of discipline, I was getting an "F" most of the time. I knew that I couldn't hold up this 3 chances method consistently. I was going to need to do something that I could maintain for the duration and I settled on leaning into the shepherding of the heart side. This didn't mean I never had to correct one of the 3, or that I very evenly and moderately parented 24/7... it just meant that I mostly tried to hear what was happening internally in that child who was being challenging and address the core issue (if I could discern it). I still don't know if this was right. The proof is in the pudding as they say, and in my view the pudding is still setting.

I love my children. Wouldn't give up the experience of being their mother for the world, but I'm still not sure I've done a very good job with the whole thing. I can only do what I know to do in that moment, that space and time. In that exasperating, fraught moment. There are no do overs. Mistakes are made, words are said, feelings are released and wounds are often inflicted. There is only admitting fault, being humble and loving through the challenges one moment at a time.

At the end of the day I'm hoping this is what I've lived out as a parent, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." I Peter 4:8 

Selah.

art

This morning I made the "mistake" of watching a video on the process of one of my favorite artists. It was like getting a taste of sugar after weeks, months, of abstaining. Instantly I feel the lurch in my gut, the longing to have space and paints and paper and space and margin and freedom and all my art supplies in one place, at my fingertips. For whatever unknown (to me) reason, all the health chaos in my world is taking up all the art space in my brain. You'd think it would be an outlet, (and it has proven to be so from time to time), but mostly it's just a longing.  

About 8 months ago when I thought things were just ticking along and it was kinda only a matter of time before we emerged from this tunnel, I dove back into art. It was lovely. I took deep gulps of creative air and frolicked in all the possibilities, and then in April I came crashing back to reality and closed all the lids, washed up all the palettes, left stacks of unfinished ideas strewn across my art desk and returned to the grind of hard things. Art feels frivolous at the moment. A tantalizing slice of a world without struggle and pain, where the brain is free to imagine light in every corner and color spills out laughing and joyous. 

This is just how I feel right now. In this exact moment. Maybe I will feel differently tomorrow.

2 weeks post scan

Today marks 2 weeks since Alex's last disappointing PET scan. It's been a bit of a tumult. I'm not going to re-hash the results here, it's all on CaringBridge if you care to know. Instead I'm going to ramble. This is my perogitive since this is my blog and sometimes rambling is just what a soul needs. I was talking to someone the other day about this scripture:

  "So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? 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 big-time, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. 12-13 So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!" Hebrews 12: 6-14 

 It's very helpful for me to mentally re-frame this season I'm in as a season of training. My much loved mother in law, Janie, had a scripture verse that she prayed over each of her boys and daughters in law. Her scripture for me was: Psalm 18:34..."He trains my hands for battle, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze." There's no simulator training for bending a bow of bronze, there's just real time training, and it's hard.