Just Be Near

For the past two weeks, our household has been terrorized by a four-day fever bug characterized by sleepless nights, lots of whining, and general misery.  Of course, the kids couldn’t all get it at once because that would be too helpful to a mama with no sick days, so instead Caleb burned up for four days, recovered for one, then Violet went down, and two days later, Eli joined her.  It. Was. So. Much. Fun. 

                The thing about this particular virus is that it didn’t bring any scary symptoms (thank goodness).  No one had trouble breathing or barked like a seal.  No one developed pink eye.  No one broke out in a rash.  They just alternated between sweating and shivering while complaining of sore backs, heads, and knees.  And you know what they asked me for over and over again?  Even more than they asked for a drink?  “Just stay with me, Mommy.”  “I want you to sleep with me, Mommy.”  “No, Mommy, please don’t leave.  Just stay here.  Sit on my bed.  Lie down beside me.  Be here.”  I’d like to say that I did better with these requests than I did.  While it is darn near impossible to say no to a child with such a loving request, I confess that I found myself lying there thinking about all the things I should be doing.  I worried about the germs I was catching when Caleb fell asleep with his head on my shoulder for the third time.  I worried that I was actually keeping him awake when we all needed sleep.  I worried about unpaid time off work.  I worried…I let me mind wander elsewhere, when in reality, there is no greater gift than I child who craves my presence in his hour of need.  No one asked me to make them better, although there were plenty of requests for Motrin (granted).  They. Wanted. Me.  What a gift to be a mom.

                My heart is so soft toward my children when I think back on those weeks.  They’ve shown me what God asks of me.  “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  “Seek the Lord and He will be found.”  For the last few days, the cry of my heart has begged God to be near to me.  I had a vivid dream of being cuddled up next to someone (nameless?) who wrapped his arm around me and made me feel safe.  I can’t tell you how much I crave that safety.  That tenderness.  That love that desires to protect.  

               Life is hard and I’m just so tired and I feel so alone…please just sit with me.  Let me feel better because You are here, Father.  Please let me feel Your presence…Your comfort.  Please let that be enough.

Not Yet

***Rant Alert***

Not yet.

I seem to be hearing a lot of that lately, and it SHOULD be encouraging.  After all, “not yet” doesn’t mean “not at all.”  It leaves the door open for hope….for a lot of hope, really.  It means God is still working on something His word promises is good.  But when you desperately want to be at home with your babies while they are babies, when you know that the days of chubby feet, smooth skin, and first steps are racing by in an impossible rush to adulthood, when you know (because every single person over the age of sixty constantly reminds you) that you can’t get these days back, and you are spending them in a haze of exhaustion while those babies sit in daycare…”net yet” sure does suck.  When am I going to get the chance to devote my best self to my kids?  When they’re in college and never want to call because after all, I did regularly dose them up with Motrin and take them to daycare because I didn’t have any sick days?  When the class party stage is over and mom is the contemporary equivalent of a person with leprosy?  When they are in school all day anyway?  I mean, yes Anna got to see Jesus…right before she died of old age.  My hope kind of has an expiration date, so if I’m waiting that long, why bother hoping?  For me right now, “not yet” feels just like “never”. 

I am trying hard to be grateful.  To be faithful.  To remember that I don’t have God’s perspective, just like my children don’t have mine.  To lean into his promises, even though I can’t see even a tiny glimmer that they are true. 

It still sucks.

Cleaning the Windshield

On the way home from Summit Park on Saturday, we stopped to get gas and James washed the front windshield. I’d like to tell you I do this regularly, but Eli’s reaction should tell you all you need to know.

                “Mommy, what is he doing to our window?  I CAN’T SEE!!!!  How are we going to drive if we can’t see out the window?” 

                “Buddy, he’s going wipe off the soap and water when he’s finished, and then we’ll be able to see even better than before.”  Eli still looked doubtful, so I told him, “Watch.  Tell me when you can see.” 

                Sure enough, wipe by wipe, the house adjacent to the gas station began to materialize in front of us, clear and bright through the transformed glass.

                Cleaning is messy stuff; sometimes things look a whole lot worse before they get better.  I feel like I’m buried under the mess right now.  The future is obscured by a thick layer of suds and grime, and I can’t make out even glimmers of a future I can hope for.  Life lately has been messy (literally and figuratively…because when am I supposed to clean this house?), and I am exhausted and discouraged.  Caleb’s tantrums have returned with a vengeance, Eli is trying to make sense of these changes by asserting himself, Violet just needs me all the time, and I am exhausted and stretched too thin.  There’s nothing left to cut and no one to ask for help.   At any given moment, all I’m thinking about are all the things that have yet to be done.  The quiet time and space to reflect that marked my recent months is gone, and my spirit and soul are dry.  I hate the mother I have become, but I can’t find the strength to be any better.

                God, you promise to make all things beautiful in Your time.  I beg you to make our family  beautiful.  And please make me beautiful again, instead of this shell of hurt and pain that I’m living in.  I cannot do this on my own, but You are a God who specializes in healing the broken, in making the dirty clean again.  You can resurrect this life we’re living.  Please help me.  

Handing it Over

Just ramblings today.  I've been working on some projects, but mostly just working on life.  On surviving life.

Caleb doesn’t eat breakfast until he gets to daycare, but often he wakes up ravenously hungry.  I wouldn’t ask myself to wait an hour and a half to eat, and I won’t ask that of my kiddo either, so he usually gets a banana or a smoothie on the way out the door.  Often he receives his snack before we head out the door and finishes it in the car on the way to daycare because our mornings just…are.  That leads to a moment of stress when I am fastening him into the five-point harness and his arm simply won’t fit through with a whole banana firmly in his grip.  “Let me have the banana for a minute, honey.” 

                “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!  It is MY banana!  You. Can’t. Have. My. Banana!”  Caleb can scream like no other; I should send an apology note to the neighbors.  I would not want to wake up to that. 

                “Honey, I’m not taking your banana.  I’m holding it so that I can buckle you safely into your seat, so that you can relax and enjoy it while we drive to school.”  And literally, I pry it out of his grubby hands for thirty seconds, snap the straps into place, and hand it back to my fuming child.  Thirty seconds in exchange for a safe drive.  It is nothing, really.  Except to him, it was a whole lot.

                I’ve mentioned before how much I learn about my heavenly Father as I parent these children of mine.  This is no exception.  In his infinite wisdom, He can certainly ask me to hand something over, either for a minute or a lifetime, because it is good for me.  And when he does, my flesh will scream and holler because it, like Caleb’s tummy, is hungry, desperate.  Unless I cling to God’s promises that He is good, I will think that He isn’t.  And even though His reasons are good, that doesn’t eliminate the hunger.

                I feel myself in Caleb’s spot now: my heart hungers to be home with my kids.  My heart worries constantly about our finances.  My body and spirit are oh, so tired.  These are real things; God does not ask us to deny our truth, and that is mine.  I don’t know or understand what he’s doing…why He seems so slow.  I don’t understand why provision hasn’t come.  Why my tires should have been replaced three months ago and I still can’t afford it.  Why we just can’t get a break.  I don’t understand, but He is holding all of this in His hands and I have to trust that He’ll hand it back when He is ready.  When the time is right. 

                And so these are my prayers for today:  that God will teach my children to have a heart for others, that He will protect their innocence and protect their health, that He will show himself to me in ways that I cannot deny or write off to coincidence, that He will use me and give me the words He wants spoken.  I pray that He sees me as faithful, and that it delights Him.