Hello Blog, I’ve done a bad thing and joined face book and
therefore have neglected my writing to you.
But I want you to know that despite the neglect, I have missed you. I
have missed writing… So I sit here with my laptop tonight by the window, listening
to the thunder roll across the sky as it lights up with the monsoons.
My writing. My therapy.
I wrote this on Sunday. Just now getting around to posting it...
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Race had a meltdown at church today. It was his first in a
while. Except this time it was a little different. There was a defiance about
him that I haven’t seen in a while. Usually I can put my hand on his shoulder
and the pressure actually helps to calm him.
Today he wanted me to go away. He flinched when I tried to put my hand
on his shoulder.
Part of it, I know, he was mad at me. He gets mad at me when
I get after his brothers… even when his brothers are being stinkers the way
boys can be. He takes his role as big
brother very serious and doesn’t even want me, their mother, to reprimand them.
It’s very frustrating for all of us. And it usually causes this ridiculous
spiral effect in our home- I get after brother for something, Race gets mad at
me. Then I get after Race for getting after me, and by that point, John is
getting after Race for getting after me, and I’m getting after the brother for starting
the whole thing in the first place-and so it goes! And when it’s all said and
done, everybody is frustrated, and everybody needs cool down time, and then
thirty minutes later we are all hugging, apologizing, and sometimes crying
because of it all. It’s exhausting, and
despite the strategies we have in place, sometimes this still happens.
Makes you want to come live at our house on days like that,
doesn’t it?
Our perfect little family.
But in the midst of the congregation at church, people
sitting next to us, in front and in back of us, many of who saw it happen, I
felt sad and uncertain because he pushed me out. My role as a mother for him is
changing. He is growing up. And just when it seems we get things in a good
place, it all changes and new challenges are handed to us.
I know it’s like that for all parents in different ways.
But Race is finally getting to a good place socially. And
now he is ten and his friends are getting older too. And girls start getting
weird and complicated at that age anyway, so his friendships are becoming a
little more confusing to him.
And I want to help him understand this, but he wants his
space and independence. And I am struggling to find that balance once again of
where I stand as his social support.
I am feeling frustrated and nervous for the upcoming years.
And I have no words of wisdom to give you tonight because I don’t know myself.
And so I send these questions out into the virtual world-
letting you know that a new quest for answers and guidance from my Heavenly
Father as begun for me. How do you know when and how much to let go? How much
space is the right amount for him?
It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord gives us answers.
Today, I subbed Adriane’s primary class because she’s out of town. And the
lesson focused on the Bible story of Joshua and the Israelites taking over the
city of Jericho. There is a part of the
story that keeps coming to mind as I sift through my thoughts tonight. When the
Levite Priests who carried the Arc of the Covenant were commanded to step into
the River Jordan and carry the Arc across. Did they feel doubt or unease as
they did as they were told, not knowing that the waters would actually part for
them as the Red Sea did for Moses? But they walked forward, having faith in Heavenly
Father that they would be ok. They
walked into the unknown with faith.
This is the answer I feel in my heart this evening. I’m
going to stumble through questions as a parent. My answers are not going to be
given to me straight forward. The Lord is requiring me to work and walk forward
into my own river with faith.
It is so hard sometimes- especially when my mind is so
unsettled.
In time.
