Parenting: The Uphill

Being pregnant and/or breastfeeding and then mothering 5 toddlers/small children was hard.

And I thought I had made it through all those hard days as a mother . . . and that while the teen years would likely be a challenge, that making it through those hard, first ten years as a mother was the uphill part of parenting. And everything else would be like making it to the top of the hill and riding down the other side.

I was wrong.

Because then it became time to sit in the passenger seat while these humans whose bottoms I wiped and whose throw up I caught . . . learn to operate a moving vehicle. A time when I place my life into the hands of people who can barely walk through a room without losing or breaking something. Persons who, not THAT long ago, couldn't manage to wipe their behinds well enough to avoid having skid marks in their underwear. 

But so far, I've survived to tell the tale. With only a few extra gray hairs but mostly none the worse for wear. 

The Acceptance Well

I was 8 or 9, and the name "dog" was the word used most often to describe me by the peers I spent my days with.

We sat in the car. I verbalized my desire to be "cooler" and his reply was a sneer at my clothes and "well you need to get better clothes".

So I believed that the road to acceptance was paved by the clothes I wore.

Through other words and actions I came to believe that my body had to look a certain way in order to be accepted.

And then I had to say the right things,
do the right things.
Say yes to every request.
Keep unpopular opinions, beliefs and parts of me to myself.

So, one by one I swapped out me for some politically correct Stepford Wife. I would let a little bit of myself out to play to test the waters, and then quickly remove it and replace it with something either . . . blank . . . neutral . . . or whatever I believed would be the least offensive thing.

I spent 10 years of my marriage watching super hero movies and claiming to enjoy them.

I didn't. And I don't.

But this is a defining characteristic of my life. He also didn't hear me sing for the first 5 years of our marriage.

Ultimately, it all comes down to me rejecting myself. Because if I accepted myself, it wouldn't matter what anyone else said or implied about the way I am.

This rejection of myself has lead to me seeking out acceptance from others. But the thing is, if I don't have the acceptance already...no amount of getting it from other people will fill the well where my self acceptance goes.

So I'm asking myself a lot of questions. Like, is writing a way that I seek acceptance? Or is it truly something I'm called to do? Do I believe what I say or do I say the things that I know will be acceptable to the people I want to be accepted by? Where have I buried my identity for a more acceptable one?

I don't have definitive answers to all of those things. I'm still soul searching.

I know that I'm supposed to have all of this figured out before I write about it, I've read all the things too. But I'm not Lysa Terkheurst or any of those other women, and I'm not trying to be. I'm just a real lady dealing with real things.

Take it. or leave it. It's up to you.

Choosing to Believe

“We see the world as WE are, not as it IS.”

I used to read scripture as a list of shoulds and wishes for what God desired the world to be. I would have told you that I believed in absolute truth, and that the Bible contains it. In practice? I believed it was an ideal to reach for, not absolute truth.

Oh, I believed that some things were absolute truth, like that God created the world and Jesus died on the cross. But when Paul said, “for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God”...not so much.

Or when Jesus said, “if you continue as my disciples then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” not then either. And the scriptures that tell me how much God loves me? Fagetaboutit!

I would pray, begging for God to make me die (to my flesh in the spiritual sense of Col 3) and for him to hide my life in Christ. I longed to know truth, even though I was continuing as His disciple. I wanted him to love me, but I believed I was too flawed.

I didn’t believe scripture. I wasn’t living in reality as defined by the Creator of it.

The thing is, truth doesn’t change based on whether I believe it, or how I feel about it. God’s character does not change based on what I believe about Him. He is good, whether I believe He is or not.

The Bible is the revelation of truth. Absolute truth. And not just the creation story and Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection. God’s revelation of who we are, and how He feels about us is also absolute truth. It isn’t subject to our emotions and beliefs.

When Paul says, “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” he didn’t mean ‘there SHOULD be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’ He’s not revealing how it COULD be. He is revealing what is real. Reality. Absolute truth.

When Paul says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure.” He is telling us what is real. Reality. Absolute truth.

If I do not believe this, if I do not live this. I do not really believe that God’s word is absolute truth.

Thief

Sure, there are moments when I compare and the comparison steals my joy because I don't have what they have.

They're skinnier.
A better cook.
A more loving mom.

All of the ways that someone else might be "better" than me. I am reduced to "less than".

but in all of this comparing, there HAVE to be moments when I do measure up. When the verdict isn't less than, but more than. Because what motivation would I have to play a game that I always lose?

There are people that I have labeled as "weird". People whose opinion I don't ask for because I don't take them seriously. People who I avoid sitting with at lunch. Or people that I feel the need to fix.

 I am not advocating for trophies for everyone. I am advocating for seeing people through the eyes of Jesus instead of a Soccer coach or a college admissions board. Or a mean girl.

Comparison is wrong in both contexts.

So, in all of this "finding my identity in Christ", I am committing to finding yours there too.

 
Not because of what you believe, or how alike we are or any other thing about you.

 
God's promise that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and his workmanship, are promises to you too. And if I am committed to living in His promises for me, I have to acknowledge and live in His promises for you too.

 
 The former is not truly possible without the latter.