Love wins. Rinse and repeat.

I stood in Target last night completely and utterly about to lose my mind on my four year old who would not stop with the “Hey Mommy, why are you picking up bananas?” and “Mommy, I want chocolate ice cream!” and “Mommy, Ellie is not sharing the gummy snacks!” and “Mommy, when are we leaving this place so we can go to the paaaaaarrrrrrk??” and IF I HEAR MOMMY ONE MORE TIME I’M GOING TO FLIP OUT SO CAN EVERYONE PLEASE JUST SHUT UP!!!!!!

The really unfortunate part of this situation was that Vaughn apparently can see into the future because before we left the house he asked if we could all wear our “monkey in bath robes” t-shirts (I’ve tried telling him they aren’t wearing bath robes, they are actually little monk monkeys, but he’s four and, frankly, monkeys in bath robes are just funnier to him). Anyway, the back of each of our t-shirts each have a saying: his says “we can do hard things”; Ellie’s says “we belong to each other”; and mine says “love wins”. In that moment of wanting to come completely unglued in the middle of Target I remembered I was wearing Love Wins on my back and if anyone saw me do what I really wanted to do, that would NOT be an example of love winning. My son’s shirt just taunted me all night long:

 

It’s like the pastors that won’t have church bumper stickers printed up for their members to place proudly on their cars. Because the one time that member with the sticker lets their rage go on the road to another driver, that other driver is going to be paying attention to the bumper sticker and make a note never to attend that church. I felt obligated to own up to what my shirt was proclaiming. And in that moment I hated that we were wearing these shirts (sorry, G). I really wished I was wearing a shirt that read “I’m a mom. I’ve had a hard day. My kids are driving me crazy. Please look the other way while I show them what crazy really looks like.”

And I don’t know why I did it but I turned my back to the kids and looked around. Desperate to find someone, anyone, that looked to be in the same crazy boat I was in. Filled with holes, water pouring in, sure to sink within seconds, and frantically trying to get the water out using a bucket riddled with cracks. And I found her. Not even 10 feet away from me.

Except that her boat looked nothing like mine. She was an older lady. Perfectly put together. No kids acting like complete maniacs at her side. And her eyes were peacefully set in their sockets while mine bulged out of my head looking like Ramona Singer of the RYONYC. This lady was reaching for a bag of coffee on the top shelf and wasn’t quite tall enough to get it. I stepped away from my chaos and asked if I could help. She smiled and let me. Then she said, “looks like you have your hands full today” and I laughed with a “oh, you have no idea.” She told me she was a young mom once with five (FIVE!!) children running around and knew these days well. I willed myself to absorb the love this woman was showing. Which is SO hard to do in a moment like that. But she kept talking. She said, “Love really does win, you know, just like your shirt says. Maybe not in this moment but in the end, it does.” By this point I had tears in my eyes and wanted to run but she continued. “Put those kids to bed and take yourself a bath. Wash the day away. They forget these moments of driving mommy crazy and you can start over. You just rinse and repeat.”

“Thank you” is all I got out and walked away. Still kinda wanting to scream at my kids (let’s be honest, even the kindness of that sweet woman wasn’t enough to erase the terror of these kids that are obviously suddenly insane and STILL FIGHTING OVER THE GUMMY SNACKS) but also kinda just wanting to remember that at some point love will win. Maybe not in this moment, but, in the end it will.

And so we left Target and went to the park.

And then I called a friend to say I am coming over whether you like it or not because I just can’t do the mom thing by myself right now. We need those kinds of friends that understand and don’t judge and let us show up unannounced then offer us chocolate cobbler. We need our Monkees.

So, in the end, love wins. Even in the moments when it doesn’t. At the end of the chain of moments that feel like there is no way in this hell I am going through that love can win, it really does.

Rinse and repeat.

Defining My Words

I’ve run into a snag in parenthood. Trying to define the words I use is making me stumble awkwardly down the path of educating through dialogue. I believe in open communication with my children to the point where I even bore myself sometimes with all the communicating. You see, Vaughn, the butterflies come into our garden because of the nectar-producing plants. Nectar is a sweet juice that…zzzzz. I find myself in moments of explaining why or how something happened and realize I don’t know what words to use. Having to stop my explanation to my 4-year old of why people are mean sometimes to define words like kindness and forgiveness ends up losing us both on the many rabbit trails I find.

So last month I decided to focus on a new word each week. Figured it would be good character-building to introduce patience, grace, generosity, etc in at-home speak and it will help my kids keep up with the conversation when I’m in the car trying to explain why we need to be kind to everyone, even when we feel like screaming and hitting (like you just did to Timmy). You know, visions of me explaining, and them absorbing everything. Most likely it will be me explaining, and them zoning out completely. But my vision wins for now.

Anywho, I started with patience. My definition was “to wait with a happy heart”. I was so stinking proud of that one. Off with a bang! Over the course of the week I found so many opportunities to tell Vaughn, “I need you to be patient right now. And that means to wait with a happy heart”. And he bought it! That would stop him in his whining tracks. I actually started finding other things to do when he asked for something just so that I could give him an “exercise” in patience. You want a peanut butter sandwich? I realize it may look like I’m just sitting on the couch watching RHONJ for the 3rd time this week but I was actually just about to fold this laundry that’s been sitting here for two days so, “Hang on, son. Be patient for mommy. Wait with a happy heart.” (of course, I didn’t actually do the laundry) A little sick, I know. But I was character-building.

Week 1 done. Patience learned. I’m such a great mom.

That was last week. This week I chose grace. Definition: sharing or giving with a loving heart. I made a mental note to have all of my definitions circle back to the heart. The big lesson at some point down the road being that character is made up of things we do with our heart as our guide. Man, I am good. Mental note #2: maybe next week’s word should be pride. Nah.

Monday: I started by telling Vaughn that the iPad belongs to Mommy and I love it. I use it a lot and it’s something that is very valuable (rabbit trail here to define valuable) to me. I have games, books, and movies on it for you because I love you and I want to share this valuable thing with you.  I allow you to use it because I love you. And it’s with a loving heart that I share this thing with you. And that is an act of grace from Mommy to Vaughn. He smiled and said, “Ok, can I play with my iPad now?”. Um, I think you may have just missed my point. We’ll try again later.

Before bed that night I took one of Vaughn’s silkies (little silk blankets he’s slept with since he was a baby) and tell him about grace once more. I explain that this silkie is something that he loves and it would be a big act of grace to let Ellie sleep with it tonight. To share something you love with her and have a loving heart while doing that would be very graceful of you. He said he would think about this during story time. Side note: I looooove this age. Watching the thought process and reasoning happen is incredible to me in such a young person. I look at him as a baby still and then he has these moments that remind me of his personhood and I fall in love with him over and over again. Fast-forward to end of story time. He tells me that he loves his silkie and he loves his Ellie and he wants to be grace. (We’ll work on how to use these words later. The point right now is what it means, and CHECK, he got it!) He hands her the silkie. I’m blown away but try not to show surprise at this huge act of love. It doesn’t matter that there are three other silkies laying beside him. What matters in this moment is that he chose grace. I really want to be all ram-in-the-thicket and give it right back to him saying it was all a test and YAY! You aced it! Because honestly, Ellie has silkies of her own and doesn’t really know the difference yet between hers and his. And I’m just so darn proud of him. But I let it stick and put Vaughn’s silkie in the crib with Ellie.

This morning, however, he came to his senses and saw her with it, promptly forgot all forms of grace in his morning stupor and snatched it out of her hands. A work in progress. All of us.

But I realized that this exercise of word defining is teaching me more than Vaughn. Over the past two weeks, I’ve sat in waiting rooms (there’s a reason they are called waiting rooms, not patience rooms. I DO NOT have a happy heart when I’ve been sitting for an hour after my appointment time with no end in sight. There is waiting with a happy heart and then there’s waiting. BIG difference.) and had my patience tested more than I would have liked. But because I’m consciously trying to teach these things to my kids, I’m trying to live them out as well. Teaching a word and living a word is also two vastly different things. Mental note #3 to write about that sometime.

I also had the opportunity to extend grace to my new friend, Faith, this week with my Monkees and she began telling me of a community service project she got involved in last week as a result of the help she had received from us over the past month. She said, “Everyone needs something. And everyone has something to give. It doesn’t matter who you are. We are all called to be faithful servants of God’s love. And that means that we give His love consistently to everyone we meet, no matter who they are. Rich or poor, healthy or sick, man or woman, child or adult. It’s not our call to judge; it is only our call to love.” Faithful servants = loving consistently. Hmmm…

I’m astounded at the ways in which God is teaching me how to love. I may have a little bit (a lot) still to learn as I try to parent my children to be givers of love but I’m so thankful for people like Faith that have been brought into my life to teach me. To show me that no matter how I try to define all the “big words” of life for my kids, the only words that truly matter are those that circle back to the heart.

Next week’s word: Faith. What better way to teach it to someone else than try to learn it myself?

You Gotta Have Faith?

Faith eludes me. A lot. I find myself at times praying about something that I believe God can do but also knowing that He may choose not to work it out the way I’m asking Him to, if He works it out at all. This can/will discrepancy is so hard for my heart and mind to reconcile.

How do I have faith that something is going to happen when the realist side of me knows that it may not? What does it mean to have faith if my heart believes it can happen while my mind doesn’t know that it will?

I think my faith waivers most when a life is lost. I have grieved a lost life several times in my life and I’ve never been able to wade these waters with a positive outlook. I have a few friends that are right now going through a time of loss. A child only 20 months old with no previous medical issues had a seizure which led to extreme medical complications, ultimately ending with his passing, all within a matter of days. A child lost is the most unimaginable grief there is. One I hope I never know. But their view of the situation is one that I’ve yet to be able to grasp in any time of grief. In their own words, they are “resting in the promise that this is not the end”. The ability to rest in this promise in what seems to me a hopeless circumstance takes an enormous amount of faith. I love that they are able to find some place of peace through this. No doubt, their humanity rises out of this place of peace delivering sadness and despair but they are resting. Resting. Allowing God to work. I love this faith. I want this faith.

I can’t pinpoint a time in my life when I realized my faith wasn’t as strong and sure as it used to be. Was I ever full of faith? Has there ever been a time when my heart and mind agreed?  I don’t think I’ve always been this gloomy about faith but I don’t know what triggered it and I certainly can’t figure out how to grow my faith now.

Whenever I speak so openly with “church people” about my faith, and my struggle to find more of it, I’m met with a little resistance. Understandably so, I guess. Maybe they think I’m giving up. Maybe they are concerned that I’ve let the burdens of life get the best of me. And maybe they are right. But maybe they aren’t. I want to believe that they are wrong. That I’m working on it. And, more importantly, that I’m allowing God to work on it. I’ve found myself many times speaking the words from Mark 9:24 where a father brought his son to Jesus to be healed but didn’t come with full assurance that it would happen. He said, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” And those words sum up this struggle of mine. I believe; but, I have unbelief. The yin and the yang of faith.

Several months ago I started a small group for women that are looking for a place to feel love. That sounds pretty nauseating, I know. But in its most basic form, that is the role that this group serves for us. It’s a community of Monkees that give love and grace to others as freely as we receive it. We look for needs around us, seek out opportunities to help, and we do whatever we can to meet the need, to be the help.

Whatever small amount of faith I had left in me when we formed this group felt pretty insignificant. But these women, these sisters, have saved me as much as any group of people can. One thing that my heart and mind do agree on is that God placed these women in my life to help me see what faith looks like again.

Each month we take on a Love Project and April’s project centered around a woman that had recently left an abusive relationship and found herself now living in a small apartment with not much more than a bed and some books to her name. I came to our April meeting in a place of pretty low faith. I really just longed for some adult conversation. I looked forward to a night of girl talk and good food. And I was glad it wasn’t my month to lead the Love Project. But when Lindsey presented this need to the group and we began to discuss how we could help, something started to shift inside of me. The woman’s name was Faith and she needed some love and grace.

Her name was FAITH! I start asking God how I can find my faith again and he sent it to me in the form of a woman that needed me to have a little faith for her. There were, I’m sure, moments when Faith had no idea how she would be able to get furnishings for her living room, a microwave for her kitchen, or towels for her bathroom. But God knew. He saw a woman needing things to assist in getting her life back on track and he saw a group of women with the means to help.

Over that next week, I began looking in my home for things that I could give to Faith and when I pulled something out for the box I found myself saying for Faith in my head. After a little while I felt like I wasn’t saying it for our girl, Faith, anymore but for my own faith instead. Faith that there are so many people willing to help a stranger. Faith that God is using this little group of ours for His work. Faith in love. Faith in us.

I am so appreciative for the people that are in my life showing me what faith looks like again. I’m trying to find that place of rest in God’s promises. A rest that is sometimes not so easy to settle into. And maybe my heart and mind don’t always have to agree. Maybe that’s the real beauty of faith. That when my mind says no way, the love in my heart says, He’ll make a way. The challenge here is accepting His way over mine. His will over mine.

My mind doesn’t know where and when the faith will come, but my heart has to believe that it will.

It will. It will. It will.