parenting, part 2

this seems to be the unplanned sequel to my last post.  months later, i am still pondering and processing this parenting issue of benton mirroring me.  specifically, the past few months i have been struck by how much i see my same struggles in benton.  he wants to give up ship way too quickly...one thing goes not quite the way he planned and all the sudden all hope seems lost and the plan can never be recovered.  and yes i know that some of you will argue that most of this has to do with him being 14 months old..which yes definitely plays a part in it but i don't believe is the whole story.  i think the other part of the story is that he is a thinker and a planner already...in his mind he always has an idea of how things are going to go before he does them.  i can sit there and watch him and see his mind working.  i know because my mind works the same way.

derek and i had a discussion about it the other night and derek said he thought it would be easy for me to give benton grace in the ways that he is like me because i can understand.   but i told him really i feel it is the opposite.  i am convinced that our next child will be exactly like derek...laidback, chill, unfazed by little inconveniences, able to roll with whatever comes up, not super organized, probably a little forgetful and definitely prone to losing (excuse me, "misplacing" as derek would prefer i call it) things all the time.  and i am quite certain that i will be filled with grace for that little guy or girl.  i will help them remember where they misplaced things, i will make them to do lists, i will celebrate their laidback style.  and i think derek will probably struggle more with them than he does with benton.  i can see why derek would think it would be easier to give grace to a kid that is like you but there are two reasons why this doesn't seem to be true for me.  one, i have already spent the past 7 years learning to love and give grace to derek... in all the goods and bads of his personality.  so having another little derek running around the house will be nothing i haven't done before and had plenty of practice at.  two and most importantly i think is this:  i know my struggles, i am all too familiar with the brokenness that comes from my way of doing life and more than anything i don't want that brokenness for my kids.  so when i see benton flinging his toy across the room and flailing his arms up and down just because he didn't get the block on the peg on his first attempt, my heart cringes.  i ache because i know how it feels to live life that way.  it's not at all an enjoyable thing to live in.  which is why i constantly pray that God would show me a new way of living....for His sake, for my sake, and now for benton's sake.

while i pray for healing for my broken way of living, i also realize that complete restoration won't happen here.  there will always be brokenness to the way i do life on this side of heaven.  so that brings me to realize in incredibly deep ways my need for Jesus...not only for myself, but for my son.  as much as i want to parent benton well and show him Jesus, the truth is that there will be places i fail.  we are broken people raising broken people.  what better place to see our need for Jesus.  i am so thankful that ultimately God will father my son's heart, He will create in him the things I desire but cannot give him, He will show him the whole way of doing life in ways that i will never be able to.  Lord, thank you for the freedom and the grace that brings to me.  i commit to seeking to do life Your way but let You cover me and benton with Your grace when we fail...knowing that You are the one that is changing both of us.

it takes a village

lately i've been seeing so much of myself in benton.  i see me in the way he loves to be held and cuddled.  i see me in the way he struggles to just be. in the way he always wants to be doing something. in the way he likes to go to bed early.  in the way he wants to be left alone when he's tired.  in the way he gets so incredibly frustrated when things don't go exactly the way he envisions. in the way he needs other people to write stories for him.  in the way his eyes light up when he sees derek smile.  in the way he throws a fit when people don't want to do what he wants to do.  in the way he wants to be near the people he loves.  in the way he is unsure about big crowds of people.  in the way he is at peace in the familiar.  

i'm realizing that this is going to be an incredibly humbling part of parenting.  to see the good and bad of yourself reflected in someone else is a crazy thing.  more than ever before, it makes me want to be more of the good and less of the bad.

and it makes me incredibly thankful that he has two parents.  i see how benton desperately needs the balance between us.  he needs my calm and derek's crazy.  my stability and derek's unpredictability.  my logic and derek's dreams.  my peace and derek's excitement.  my schedule and derek's flexibility.  my efficiency and derek's rest. he needs derek to show him what it means to write his own story and me to show him what it means to be a part of good stories that others are writing.  he needs me to teach him how to plan and derek to show him the importance of letting plans change.  he needs me to show him how to make to do lists and derek to show him how to throw to do lists in the trash and just enjoy life sometimes.  he needs me to provide structure to his days and derek to keep him on the edge of his seat. 

and beyond that it makes me realize the true importance of raising kids in community.  derek and i each have unique things to offer him but that is not enough.  i want benton to grow up seeing jesus in all sorts of different ways in all sorts of different people.  my prayer is that benton learns to see jesus in everyone around him and becomes what he sees.

the gigantic spider in the basement vs me and the swiffer

let me preface this post by acknowledging that this could make me sound like a girly girl drama queen which i would like to think that i'm not but maybe am more than i think.  so in true drama queen fashion i will start by saying, "i'm not exaggerating this story"...but seriously, i'm not...

so i go down to the basement to switch the laundry tonight and am confronted by a spider (enter drama queen: biggest spider i've ever seen in my life) standing in the middle of the floor (just staring me down with it's beady eyes).  i could have killed it right then.  there were plenty of things within my reach to smash it with and it was in the wide open space (standing there so vulnerably).  but i froze and then i ran (ran for my life, it could have killed me).  so then i did what i'd like to think most wives do and called my husband, seeing as he could quite easily remedy the situation as he was driving down the highway 20 minutes away.   so he responded as probably most husbands do and said, "well can't you kill it?" i hung up the phone and being in a little more rational state of mind at this point, i pondered the idea and figured i could man up and do it, armed with the swiffer so i could stay out of arm's reach (of the oh so deadly spider).  so the swiffer and i headed downstairs and i foolishly expected the spider to be sitting there in the middle of the laundry room where i left it just waiting for me to come with a weapon.  but of course it wasn't.  so i retreated again fearing the uncertainty of its location.  and then i gathered up the courage to enter the laundry room and begin the search (oh so cautiously, so it didn't come spinning down from a web on the ceiling to make a surprise landing on my head).  since i'm being brutally honest, i will admit to multiple retreats out of the laundry room to take deep breaths and rationalize with myself that the spider was not crawling on me...then armed with a new breath of confidence i would re-enter (the battlefield).  finally i found it (lurking in the shadows) behind the water heater).  it wasn't in the most ideal position for execution with the swiffer but i decided i better give it a shot since i let the last opportunity pass me by. so i did.  but as i was poised with the swiffer in hand (looming over the spider's hairy head), i flinched.  which gave the spider just enough time to flee the scene and scurry under cover, well out of reach of the swiffer.  well now it was agitated so i went fleeing upstairs (barely escaping alive).  i'd like to say i've regrouped and won the battle but i haven't.  the spider is still down there (looming in shadows, or more likely making a home in my clean basket of clothes that i left when i fled).  and i am sitting upstairs (thinking about how the spider could make it's way up the stairs and into my peacefully sleeping child's crib for a midnight attack).

believe it or not there's a point to this story.  conflict seems to be the theme of my life right now.  i don't think i can name an area of my life that hasn't recently had serious conflict.  not bad conflict. conflict that makes me confront and grow and be humble and learn grace.  but conflict none the less.  and this story exemplifies my approach to it:  conflict appears with an obvious solution. i reflexively run from the confrontation.  i process and gather courage.  i go back ready to confront and take the easy solution. the situation has changed and the easy solution is no longer an option.  i retreat again.  the consequences grow irrationally in my head.  a small conflict snowballs into a much bigger mess.  and i'm left with the (looming) spider in the basement.

what i'm learning is the importance of confronting the conflict (the hairy black spider) before it grows (flees under the water heater).

spider analogy aside, i'm also learning the importance of grace.  the importance of true humility.  the importance of being able to give a genuine apology with no strings attached.  to acknowledge, take ownership for and confront my crap regardless of whether the other person does the same.  to reject the desire to make people pay for their wrongs.  to deny my inclination to keep score.  to forgive honestly and freely.  to show grace because i realize i am so in need of the same grace.

the basement

What I'm beginning to realize is that most things aren't about what they seem to be at first glance. I'd say the majority of the time the smaller issues represent bigger heart issues. Case in point: the basement. Right now it's dingy, old carpet, popcorn ceiling, cracked paint. But we have a great vision. A huge sectional, a couple tvs, new paint, a kid play space, new carpet...a sweet place to hang out with our friends and watch chiefs games. And more than it being a vision of material things, it's a vision of good community with friends we love in kc. And that part of it is good...so good.. In fact the reason we've been longing to come back to kc good. But then there's the other part of it. The part of me that is the always wanting something more part. I'm realizing that we'll always have "the basement". We'll finish the basement eventually..and then it will be a deck or some other escapade. And I'm realizing that that's just life. I think vision and dreams of what could be are a great thing and often a good motivating force. I think God has created us to dream and dream big. So I welcome them, I do dream about a cozy basement with our friends, sharing food and watching sports. But I also want to embrace now and be overwhelming thankful for what we have. I choose to see the good now. I choose to see the dreams already fulfilled rather than being consumed only by the ones to come. So for this chiefs season we'll be in our living room, still with our friends, still with good community and incredibly thankful for the dream we are already living.

goodbyes

my heart is heavy today.  transition is always a hard thing.  i feel like the past few seasons of transition in our lives have been especially bittersweet.  we have been walking into new adventures but leaving alot of good behind.  and with that i believe there is a required phase of mourning.  not a bad kind of sad, but the kind that makes you thankful for what you had and hopeful for what's to come.  today i am thankful for mourning....i'm thankful that there are things to mourn.

we are headed to kansas city with hearts full of hope but we are leaving behind a family that loves benton as much as we do.  so far the hardest thing i've had to do as a mother is to take my kid away from people that adore him.  and as i sit down and reflect on the challenge of it i realize there is a bigger issue at hand, one that i think will be continually the hardest thing i do as a mother....to let my kid experience pain.  so already i am praying for my heart.  i pray that i will have the strength to lead benton into the story that God calls him to, and i have no doubt that the story will be filled with both unimaginable good and gut-wrenching pain.  i pray that i do not stand in the way of God in my attempts to protect my son.  i pray that my love for him would be a reflection of God's love for him, that it would be more than a desire for his happiness but that it would be a desire to see him following jesus.  i pray that i would give benton's heart to jesus, not trying to shelter it on my own.

today i choose kansas city wholeheartedly because i believe it is the story God is calling us to.  i believe that derek's job there is one that will make him come alive and live passionately.  i believe the community there is one that will challenge us to follow jesus in new ways.  and i realize that what benton needs most from us is a meaningful, passionate, and unique story to be a part of.

bitter.sweet.part two

lately i've been thinking about this blog for some reason.  i started it because i felt like my time in south africa was a notable story and one that needed sharing.  recently i realized that while it was a notable story, it was just a small chapter in the larger story of our lives.  and the larger story is one even more worthy of sharing.

change will come

i've felt this pressure this week since i've been back.  when i was in africa i kept saying that i couldn't fully process what was happening there and that once i was home i would be able to process alot more.  and in my mind i guess i imagined this week being when all that would happen.  i guess i naively thought that i could just sit around and think about what just happened to me and come away with a bunch of new insight in a week.  what i'm realizing though is there are some problems with that idea.

first problem: when i have tried to sit down and think about the last six weeks i don't really know what to think about or what to do with my thoughts.  it feels like sitting around thinking about it isn't going to really get me anywhere.

second problem: i thought the processing would come as i told people my stories, and in some ways it has. but what i didn't anticipate is how hard it would be to talk about it.  i'm finding that when people ask me how africa was, my standard first line is "it was really really hard but incredibly good" but then i don't know where to go from there.  it's hard to describe.  it's hard to know where to start the story.  so much of what i just experienced was so wrapped up in the lives of the people there, i was just immersing myself in their stories and all the emotions that go along with it.  and that is a hard thing to communicate with people.  and it was, at first, disappointing because people didn't respond how i expected them to.  the stories didn't rock their world like they did mine.  but derek gave me good advice about this.  he said that second-hand stories aren't enough to change people and that is why i went there myself so that i could experience it.  he told me that the experience is mine and it was meant to change me and that i can't expect it to change other people in the same way.  that was a freeing thing to hear.

third and biggest problem:  i don't think the processing is going to come while i sit in my bedroom and just think. i think it's going to come when i least expect it, in bits and pieces, and without being forced.   i think it is going to come as i engage in normal everyday situations here and realize that my perspective has changed because of what i just experienced in the last 6 weeks.  the problem with my first approach of trying to process while i sit quietly with my thoughts is that i was approaching it as if there were something to be "figured out".  it's like i wanted to figure out what it all means and how it applies to my life.  and in some ways now i feel like that is an insult to what i just experienced.  those stories, that pain, my patients, their brokenness...it's not something to be "figured out".  it's something that i want to remember and let change the way i approach life not because i took away 3 bullet points of what i learned from that time but because i lived fully in those stories and i can't help but be changed by them.