Hearing her defend herself during a game of Barrel of Monkeys: "It's not nice to say no. You should let me play with you." Me standing at the door waiting to see if she would need me, but she didn't until later when she came home surly and throwing punches. And when I thought she needed discipline, she just needed to be held and to holler loud and clear until it ran out. There will be times in our lives when people won't want us. How can a mother prepare her girl for this?
And this life of late has such a hold on me that I can't seem to place myself in it at all. How is that possible? I watch the Peanuts Christmas special with Nora and cry when Linus tells us what the meaning of Christmas is and I am looking for that Spirit, not the one that keeps whispering "lonely...lonely...lonely..." All lies.
And Mom calls with good news from Owen's doctor. My six year old nephew whose dental x-ray showed abnormal growth and we waited days until my sister could bring him in to Children's Hospital to hear the news, and the doctor thinks it is some sort of extra tooth or bone growth...not the other that we feared.
Is there ever a day we don't worry about our children? This has been one of the most difficult areas I've found in my life to simply let go and trust.
Nora digs through some styrofoam in the living room and the white pellets stick to everything, and I am cleaning them up for a second time after folding laundry, doing dishes after making supper, and the papers still to be graded and I am taking my pity to God and feeling sorry for myself when I know that what is required of me is thanksgiving. Lord, thank you for her messes, that I can be here to help her clean them up because one day she will stand before them and have to claim her space and bandage her wounds and I might not see it. I keep telling her, "Nora, take it to God. Leave it there. Pray about it when you get that angry." If I can just make sure she knows that she is never alone...
And the word "lonely" runs like a thief who can never steal this heart because it weighs too much.
And suddenly what I thought were burdens and weights reveal themselves as the foundation that God used to build me, is using now.
"There will be times in our lives when people won't want us." I am realizing this right now. How true it really is. How sometimes we try to force ourselves upon people who simply look the other way. But it's not simple and it hurts so badly that nothing in life has ever hurt worse. I wonder how we prepare ourselves for this hurt and come to no conclusion other than "we can't." Maybe it's God's way of interfering for better in our lives or maybe it's our own stupid mistakes, our own pushing and smothering that causes them to look the other way. My heart, shattered as it may be, is with you and Nora tonight.
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