Why can't they stay little?

He's so cute, isn't he? So sweet, so innocent. :::sigh::: Why can't they stay that way?

This is my youngest son about 6 years ago. Today he's still cute, but the sweet and innocent are harder to come by. I have no idea what I'm going to do with him.

I don't have a favorite child, but of all of them, he is the one I've had the easiest time connecting with. We speak the same love languages I guess. We think alike in a lot of ways and I usually understand him better than the others.

But right now I haven't a clue what's going on in his little head.

In the last two months I've had at least four calls home from the school for various offenses - swearing, fighting, disrespect to the bus driver, inappropriate drawings... He's SEVEN for heaven's sake! Where did my Jonathan go?

I don't know what to do here. I'm not very good at this parenting thing, and clearly I don't know what it's like to be a boy. It seems like I'm always over-reacting or under-reacting and nothing I've tried changes a thing.

I know he can do better than this.

One thing about motherhood... it keeps you on your knees.

uhhhh....

Getting back into blogging is harder than I expected it to be.

I just don't feel like it.

I'm extremely long-winded so it isn't as if I don't have any words... I just don't have any words worth sharing.

So. Clearly this is going to be a very short post. Lack of words and all.

I'm doing ok, the kids are good. Life is chaos (when isn't it?). I've been on an emotional roller coaster for the last.... well, decade at least, if I'm going to be honest. I'm finally 100% divorced. My "cozy" existence recently went to Heck in a handbasket and took me along for the ride. I think it's better now...? Hmm... anything else?

Not really.

I'll be back later, when I have something to say.

1st & 15th ~ Hope and Gall

Lamentations 3:17-26

My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, "My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD."
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I will hope in Him."
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

If ever the story of my life was wrapped up in scripture, this would be it. Over the last two weeks I have thought long and hard about whether or not I was going to share this story with you.

Some people are going to wonder why I'm writing this. Some people are going to think it's foolish to be this real. Some people are going to think I'm attention-seeking. Some people are going to question my sanity. Some people are going to judge. That's ok.

There isn't a human being on this planet that can judge me more harshly than I judge myself. I can take it.

After church on February 1st I was driving down a winding stretch of highway with a cliff face on one side and a river on the other. For reasons I can't explain and have no words to express, I took off my seatbelt, floored the gas pedal until I was going over 100 mph and had every intention of driving myself straight into the cliff wall.

It was an impulse, in part brought on by a severe side-effect to an anti-depressant I started taking two weeks before. It was an impulse that took only seconds to act out, and only seconds to stop. Another car came around the bend and immediately I knew I didn't want to take someone else out with me. Microseconds after that, I remembered my children and knew I couldn't leave them this way.

Seconds. My life hinged on a few ticks of the clock.

The next day I called my therapist and we decided the safest place for me would be the hospital. I hate hospitals and the anxiety they trigger in me is nearly debilitating - I chose to have my fourth child at home, on purpose, because of it. In all the world, there is no place I'd rather NOT be.

But I went.

Because the next time... there might not have been another car on the road. The next time, I might not have remembered my children. That possibility was unacceptable.

Friends, I tell you, there are genuine Christians who experience genuine despair. There are children of the Most High who endure the life they have been given only by holding on to the hope of heaven. Even Christians sometimes want to die more than they want to live... and some will act on it.

I could be ashamed of what I did. I could be ashamed of the illness that led to the need for medication and the medication that brought me to the point of suicide. I could be - and I was. But not any more. What do I have to hide - the fact that I needed help? or the fact that I asked for it?

Whether it was strength or desperation that walked me through those hospital doors, I got the help I needed. I had 48 hours away from the stressors of life to think, to breathe and to pray. I have new medication and a plan to stay healthy and safe. More important than any of that, I have hope.

I have forgotten what happiness is, and in the weeks following my hospital stay I have begun to question whether or not I will ever fully remember. Sometimes it seems as though my life on this earth will continue to be one crisis after another until I die.

And maybe that's ok.

Because I have hope. Not hope that this life will get better, but hope that God has plans for me that will make every moment of my life a testimony to His goodness and faithfulness in the midst of suffering - hope that I can be joyful, even when I am not happy.

I'm reading an interesting and painful book called Shattered Dreams that is slowly changing my expectations of God's mercy. I've never taken this long to read anything, but I can't swallow more than a chapter at a time. It is often a very bitter pill and if the book belonged to me, I'd throw it across the room - only to run and pick it up again the next day.

Hope isn't always what we expect it to be, but it is always available to us if we are willing to accept that God's ways are not our own.

Thankful Thursday - Facing the Chaos

I think I'm ready to come back out of blogiverse oblivion, and what better time to do so than a Thursday... and what better post to return with than one of thankfulness? I am learning - thanks to a book that has been very difficult to read - to find blessing in brokeness. I have a lot more to be thankful for than I ever dreamed.

Dear Lord,
Thank You:

• For the mess in my house. It means I have a house to live in and four children to dirty it up.
• For unexpected solutions when I've stopped hoping. You know the plans You have for me, and they are good ones. Help me learn to trust that even the struggles are part of the "best" You have waiting for me.
• For the wonders of the human mind and modern medicine. Even though science has tried to leave You behind, I know You are the author of all good things, including human discovery.
• For being a God who doesn't need me, but who shows me over and over again that You want me.
• For being good to those who hope is in You. You are my portion. (Lamentations 3) Remind me of that - with a 2x4 if necessary - when I forget.
• For friends who have seen the ugliest side of me - and still love me. Thank You for the people You've brought into my life who have been willing to walk with me and get on their knees for me, even though I know it hasn't been easy for them. And thank You for being their comfort in the storm.
• Most of all Lord, thank You for the chaos. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever get better and if the crises will ever stop pouring in. Today I'm thankful for each crisis, because I am alive to face them. Thank You for my life and another day to live it.

Amen

1st & 15th ~ Always and Forever

Psalm 139:13-24 (New International Version)

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am
fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
I have nothing but hatred for
them; I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

When I was little, my mom and I had this little thing we would say. One would start, "I love you always and forever," and the other would finish, "No matter what."

My mother's always-and-forever love pales in comparison to the love my heavenly Father has for me. He knew and loved me before I ever existed. He knew and loved me as He formed each cell and part of me. He knew and loved me as He wrote everything I am and everything I will be. And my Father loves me no matter what.

These last couple of weeks I have been confronted time and time again with the no-matter-what's. My God still loves me.

Today, my God's love is more important... more vital than perhaps any other time in my life except the moment I first surrendered to Him. Today, like that day nearly 11 1/2 years ago, I stand on the knife's edge. And the fear... is indescribable.

I don't know what this today will bring, or what this today will mean for my life. I don't know if I'm going to get my Morning today, or if the road there will be a long one. There is a lot I don't know, and for someone who likes to have all the answers - who has prided herself on having the answers - "fear" somehow seems inadequate.

But there is one thing I do know... my God knows my fears, and loves me anyway.