And while my thoughts, panicked, keep turning to my own beloved ones, i feel like i am not the one providing love and understanding. I am deliberately dropping everything else - at first i thought i was doing it to have the emotional space for getting through this sad place, but i noticed that habits formed are what bubble to the surface, and empty, i do have enough. I've learned to work from His strength, not mine, and to be more tender to others the more raw i feel inside. these are good things coming out of the hard place. Honey from the rock. Evidence that He is here with me, that He is still with me.
God has met me when all i could pray is for His presence. I knew if i could just feel Him near, all would be well, but i had no words to pray anything more... But He knew. Like Baby Meow "learning to skate" - i was "learning to trust" in the most elementary way - letting Him do it for me...
Yet still, i feel like my husband (especially!) and children have really been putting boots onto the idea of bearing another's burdens these last few months. And walking next to me, their arms around their wounded comrade.
My parents have filed for divorce after forty years of marriage. It feels like no matter how strong the foundation of our family, the tarpaper roof, as ripped as it may have been, has finally been torn off, and my children have lost something precious. And i... can't even put into words all that is in my heart.
But i'm an adult, and surrounded by the best husband in the world, and seven sweet, intelligent, kind children. So why am i the one lost, unable to process, reeling?
My husband, over and over, listens, reassures, does the little things that mean he sees, he cares, he loves me. And no, he's not impatient that i'm bringing this up again. And again. And again. He prays with me, and the children pray with me.
My children are more huggy lately. We're a pretty cuddly family, but it is rare to have my lap free lately. Or to go more than an hour without a smooch and someone telling me they love me.
My oldest son is 16, and too old and cool to smooch his mama, but for Christmas he bought me a cool iphone case and a book called "Screw Calm and Get Angry" :) - a little book of funny sayings regarding the negative emotions... He understands more than the other children, i think, and is so much like me...
This part of Titus 2 stands out for me now:
Titus 2: 4 Then they can urge the younger women to
love their husbands and children,
5 to be self-controlled and pure,
to be busy at home,
to be kind,
and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
I wrote at the top of each homeschool day's planner page "Be Kind" - and i meant, kind to me, :) - but it's a good homeschool motto every day, not just to be kind to my own self but to these tender little ones who look to me to interpret the world, to explain God, to look at them and *see* who they are. I also planned something fun for each day, something for me to look forward to doing with the littles ones, and also something that forced me out of the inward focus, the desire to just crawl into a dark place and be alone... I don't think those verses are saying "Be busy at home" so that i can boast of all i do - i think He knows how essential it is to keep moving, especially in hard times. To do the next thing, as Elisabeth Elliot wrote... (please click the link! It will encourage you!)
As i move out of this hard place, my word isn't "be kind" anymore, or "get through this day, so you can get through the next one, and the next one"... My word is TRUST.
This is my word for 2012, and i will trust that God will complete what HE has begun, and that it is good, and for good. For my good, and for His glory, and that it will work beauty from ashes.
As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
1 comments:
There are no words to say at a time like this. So sorry. Prayers for peace.
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