"May our God
make you worthy of his calling
and fulfill every resolve for good
and every work of faith by his power,
so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him,
according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Thessalonians 1:11-12
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Friday, September 06, 2019
Reconciliation
My two year old son confessed to his father at the first opportunity.
"Dad! I almost killed Reid today!" he shouted by way of greeting, my harsh rebuke from hours earlier turned into the day's big headline as he leaped toward my husband's approaching figure.
I recalled hearing my baby's harsh wails from the bathroom just after lunch, racing outside in a panic at their unfamiliar tone, seeing him flailing on the pavement a foot and a half beneath the ledge of the cement stair. I registered Abbott's fleeing form from my periphery as I scooped his brother up. "Did you push him? On purpose?" I demanded, and he answered boldly, "Yeah! I did!"
Fear and fury propelled me across the yard, and I seized Abbott's arm and yanked him back into the house. He began to scream and pull away, and our passionate tangle somehow landed us in the kitchen. "No more backyard time till after nap," I snarled, dropping the offender roughly on the kitchen floor and turning my back on him. "Oh you sweet boy. You okay, buddy?" I crooned softly into the baby's ear.
He was limp and pale now, a goose egg beginning to form on his scraped forehead, a thin paste of blood and gravel under his nose. I checked his eyes for signs of dilation, eased his head into the crook of my arm, and backslid into breastfeeding after a week's effort to wean him. As he suckled, his eyes fixed on mine. Their clarity and stillness communicated themselves to me. "You're okay, aren't you?" I breathed, reassured. "You're just fine."
In the kitchen, Abbott continued to weep inconsolably. I let my head fall back against the couch cushion and inhaled deeply, willing myself to calm, beginning to feel the familiar pang of regret at how I'd allowed my fury to overcome me.
"Bubs, honey, can you come here?" I called. It took a few efforts, but he slowly dragged over to my side, his siren sobs growing deafening at he approached. I took his hand in mine.
"Shhh, hey, shhhh. It's all right, Bubs. Shhh, I know. You know what? He is going to be okay. He is. Even though you could have killed him, doing that. You must NEVER ever push him that way again. Do you understand? You almost killed him!" My words twisted into rebuke, then accusation, as the memory washed over me again, the knowledge of how easily this could have been a tragedy. I cut myself off, studying the stubborn face, then squeezed the little hand and kissed it. It occurred to me that Reid's wellbeing was not uppermost in Abbott's self-absorbed toddler heart anyway. "You feel bad, don't you, son?"
"I want to go in the backyard," was the only response he could muster, his voice shaking. I understood it to mean, I want this not to have happened.
"I know. After nap, you may again." I cupped his cheek in my palm and smiled. "I promise."
The violence I'd done him hung in the air as palpably as the violence he'd done Reid. I found I needed to go further. "I am so sorry I was rough with you, and mean. It is wrong when mama is rough and mean, just like it is wrong when you are. I'm sorry, Bubs."
He sniffed. "Oh." But he snuggled nearer into the curve of my other arm, and the stubbornness began to seep out of his expression.
I always expected that I'd be ready to forgive my children seventy times seven times. What I didn't foresee was that I would need their mercy so often, too. When I overreach in insisting upon my own way. When I am impatient, unkind, irritable, and resentful. When it seems as though my love does have conditions, obscure to myself as well as to them. My children lack the perspective to view a conflict through my eyes, but I am able to view it through theirs if I try. The effort reveals that my mothering is too often hypocritical, unpredictable, and harsh. So I find myself asking their forgiveness, again and again and again.
And now again.
It is too late to return to the backyard and do it better. Instead, as the outraged adrenaline of conflict ebbs away, I fold them close to me. Our sobered silence dissipates gently into the relief of smiles and then the silliness that in its lack of inhibition is the surest sign to me of our covenant being fully restored.
I hope this unspoken affirmation of covenantal wholeness permeates them in this moment, that it reinforces all such moments from our past, lays the groundwork for all such moments in the future. I hope that they absorb the worthiness of forgiveness, every time, whether they have wronged or been wronged or (in most cases) a little of both.
Wherever this is sought of you in your future life, I pray you give it generously.
Wherever you seek this in your future life, I pray you find it generously given.
"Dad! I almost killed Reid today!" he shouted by way of greeting, my harsh rebuke from hours earlier turned into the day's big headline as he leaped toward my husband's approaching figure.
I recalled hearing my baby's harsh wails from the bathroom just after lunch, racing outside in a panic at their unfamiliar tone, seeing him flailing on the pavement a foot and a half beneath the ledge of the cement stair. I registered Abbott's fleeing form from my periphery as I scooped his brother up. "Did you push him? On purpose?" I demanded, and he answered boldly, "Yeah! I did!"
Fear and fury propelled me across the yard, and I seized Abbott's arm and yanked him back into the house. He began to scream and pull away, and our passionate tangle somehow landed us in the kitchen. "No more backyard time till after nap," I snarled, dropping the offender roughly on the kitchen floor and turning my back on him. "Oh you sweet boy. You okay, buddy?" I crooned softly into the baby's ear.
He was limp and pale now, a goose egg beginning to form on his scraped forehead, a thin paste of blood and gravel under his nose. I checked his eyes for signs of dilation, eased his head into the crook of my arm, and backslid into breastfeeding after a week's effort to wean him. As he suckled, his eyes fixed on mine. Their clarity and stillness communicated themselves to me. "You're okay, aren't you?" I breathed, reassured. "You're just fine."
In the kitchen, Abbott continued to weep inconsolably. I let my head fall back against the couch cushion and inhaled deeply, willing myself to calm, beginning to feel the familiar pang of regret at how I'd allowed my fury to overcome me.
"Bubs, honey, can you come here?" I called. It took a few efforts, but he slowly dragged over to my side, his siren sobs growing deafening at he approached. I took his hand in mine.
"Shhh, hey, shhhh. It's all right, Bubs. Shhh, I know. You know what? He is going to be okay. He is. Even though you could have killed him, doing that. You must NEVER ever push him that way again. Do you understand? You almost killed him!" My words twisted into rebuke, then accusation, as the memory washed over me again, the knowledge of how easily this could have been a tragedy. I cut myself off, studying the stubborn face, then squeezed the little hand and kissed it. It occurred to me that Reid's wellbeing was not uppermost in Abbott's self-absorbed toddler heart anyway. "You feel bad, don't you, son?"
"I want to go in the backyard," was the only response he could muster, his voice shaking. I understood it to mean, I want this not to have happened.
"I know. After nap, you may again." I cupped his cheek in my palm and smiled. "I promise."
The violence I'd done him hung in the air as palpably as the violence he'd done Reid. I found I needed to go further. "I am so sorry I was rough with you, and mean. It is wrong when mama is rough and mean, just like it is wrong when you are. I'm sorry, Bubs."
He sniffed. "Oh." But he snuggled nearer into the curve of my other arm, and the stubbornness began to seep out of his expression.
I always expected that I'd be ready to forgive my children seventy times seven times. What I didn't foresee was that I would need their mercy so often, too. When I overreach in insisting upon my own way. When I am impatient, unkind, irritable, and resentful. When it seems as though my love does have conditions, obscure to myself as well as to them. My children lack the perspective to view a conflict through my eyes, but I am able to view it through theirs if I try. The effort reveals that my mothering is too often hypocritical, unpredictable, and harsh. So I find myself asking their forgiveness, again and again and again.
And now again.
It is too late to return to the backyard and do it better. Instead, as the outraged adrenaline of conflict ebbs away, I fold them close to me. Our sobered silence dissipates gently into the relief of smiles and then the silliness that in its lack of inhibition is the surest sign to me of our covenant being fully restored.
I hope this unspoken affirmation of covenantal wholeness permeates them in this moment, that it reinforces all such moments from our past, lays the groundwork for all such moments in the future. I hope that they absorb the worthiness of forgiveness, every time, whether they have wronged or been wronged or (in most cases) a little of both.
Wherever this is sought of you in your future life, I pray you give it generously.
Wherever you seek this in your future life, I pray you find it generously given.
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
Homemaker
Naptime has cast its spell over this Minneapolis home. Firm September breezes comb through the curtains. Between their strokes, sunlight stripes the furniture and the pendulum flickers lightly in its glass case. A goldfinch perches on the feeder through the kitchen window, then flashes its white tailfeathers as it lifts up and away. The crickets are insistent in the weedy side yard at my back.
I have coffee, warm in its stainless steel container though it was brewed shortly after dawn with the children's eggs and toast. It sits on a highchair in the debris of the baby's lunch: stiffening noodles, a puddle of milk flecked by zucchini bread crumbles and cubes of cantaloupe. On the floor the recycling bin has been emptied and disassembled, and a rolling pin crusted with mottled blue and pink playdough leans against a similarly crusted chair leg. A pair of snap-up blue jeans, size 12 month, tangles with the power cord of my laptop nearby, and a lone toddler sandal waits on the coffee table. A thicket of stencils and pencils has overgrown the dining table. Blades of grass and garden scraps leave a trail from the back entry to the counter, where my daughter left a pail of under-ripe cherry tomatoes she'd plucked after breakfast.
Today I attend to this all, but not in the usual way of sweeping and wiping, folding and gathering and re-ordering.
It is autumn. The yellow buses again haul their cargo down our street as the naptime hour nears its end. I am in my fourth year of motherhood. I need reminding that paying attention is a way of desiring, a form of prayer. So I wait on the truth of my life here, where my children are absent yet present, and what I have made in this home has found its fulfillment in being unmade. My love for them remembers itself, flickers over every mess with tenderness.
The baby has begun to fuss. Now I am ready to stand, gather him in my rested arms, and begin again.
I have coffee, warm in its stainless steel container though it was brewed shortly after dawn with the children's eggs and toast. It sits on a highchair in the debris of the baby's lunch: stiffening noodles, a puddle of milk flecked by zucchini bread crumbles and cubes of cantaloupe. On the floor the recycling bin has been emptied and disassembled, and a rolling pin crusted with mottled blue and pink playdough leans against a similarly crusted chair leg. A pair of snap-up blue jeans, size 12 month, tangles with the power cord of my laptop nearby, and a lone toddler sandal waits on the coffee table. A thicket of stencils and pencils has overgrown the dining table. Blades of grass and garden scraps leave a trail from the back entry to the counter, where my daughter left a pail of under-ripe cherry tomatoes she'd plucked after breakfast.
Today I attend to this all, but not in the usual way of sweeping and wiping, folding and gathering and re-ordering.
It is autumn. The yellow buses again haul their cargo down our street as the naptime hour nears its end. I am in my fourth year of motherhood. I need reminding that paying attention is a way of desiring, a form of prayer. So I wait on the truth of my life here, where my children are absent yet present, and what I have made in this home has found its fulfillment in being unmade. My love for them remembers itself, flickers over every mess with tenderness.
The baby has begun to fuss. Now I am ready to stand, gather him in my rested arms, and begin again.
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