When I was a very small child, my father left, and I only saw him sporadically throughout my growing up years. He lived on the other side of the country, and so I used to fly out for one week every summer--if he was around. Sometimes those summer visits didn't happen.
I always felt like there was something wrong with me because my father didn't seem to want to be with me. Other friends I had whose parents were divorced coped better, it seemed to me, because they at least saw their dads on the weekends. I didn't.
When I was seven, my mother got together with a new man who was wonderful. He loved me, and we had such fun together. He had a dog, so now I had a dog, and I felt like we were a real family. But when they broke up when I was 14, that man asked to cut off contact with me, because he felt like it would be too emotionally difficult.
I think partly because of both of these incidents, I went through my teen years letting friends walk all over me. I didn't really stand up for myself; I let everyone else set the terms of our relationship, because I so wanted people to like me. That often meant I was annoying to be around, because I was really clingy, but other people decided how often we would be together, what we would do, and when our relationship would end.
When I finally met a man I was sure I would marry, and we became engaged, he broke up with me, too. He later came crawling back, and we did marry, but I went into that marriage with such rejection issues.
I know some of you have worse pasts than mine, but I tell all that story to say that now the littlest rejection can send me into a funk.
Yesterday I "tweeted" a link to an article on what's okay to do in the bedroom. It was a good article, and most people who follow me on Twitter are Christians.
Well, two individuals who are atheists replied and called me all sorts of bad things. I laughed it off and blocked them, for a few hours later I was out in the car, driving my daughter somewhere, and realized I was in a funk. And I couldn't figure out why. And after thinking about it, I realized it was related to those silly tweets. It felt like an arrow had hit me.
Why? I completely agreed with the article I linked to. I wasn't sorry. I didn't think I was wrong. I don't agree with those tweeters' world view, and I don't agree with the way they communicate. I do not respect them in the least. So why did it bother me that they thought I was silly? After all, we're told in the Bible that we will be laughed at and jeered at--and worse--because we follow Jesus, and when we do get laughed at, we're to consider it a badge of honour.
I know all that intellectually, and after praying, I settled down about those two. But I do have this streak in me that makes it difficult to function well when I know people are annoyed at me, even if I wouldn't have done anything differently because I think I was right. It's one of the reasons I find committee work hard, because invariably you tick off somebody, and most others aren't afraid to let you know when they're annoyed at you (which I find really strange, because I hardly ever tell anyone when they annoy me. I guess I just don't think about it. My main bent is to get people to like me, not to figure out if I like them).
I am much better than I used to be, but I find it still a struggle, and something I have to take daily to God in prayer. I can deal with disagreements with my family, because I know they'll get resolved. But when it's merely acquaintances, or co-workers, or even strangers through hate mail, I feel all horrible when people are mad at me.
It may be natural, but it's wrong, because we're to please God, and not men, and we're to concentrate on doing what He wants, and not what others want. I shouldn't take it to heart like I do. But it is a struggle I have, and so I continue to pray through it, and tell myself that it's okay when people are mad at me--if they're mad for the right reasons.
Do any of you struggle with this? How do you handle it?
A little over a week ago I wrote a post on the difficulties I've been having with nightmares. I so appreciate all the comments many of you made! I think my nightmares have been multi-faceted. I have been speaking a lot lately, and I think I've been under a bit of attack. But I also think just plain fear is rearing its ugly head.
Today I want to do a follow-up which I think relates to all of us, whether or not we've had nightmares.
I mentioned in that post that I didn't think the dreams I had had anything to do with me, because they were just ridiculous. But it was still disturbing. And I really did believe that. But one dream that I remember the best seems to actually be relevant in retrospect, though I didn't think so at the time. In it, a friend of mine (it doesn't matter which one; I don't want her to freak out reading this) had three of her children die in an accident, leaving only one.
Throughout the dream, she was trying to cope with having only one child. But the weird thing is that my friend only has three children to begin with, not four. So in the dream she told me that she had had one she had forgot to tell me about.
Anyway, I cried throughout the dream nonstop about these kids, and for my friend having only one. And I had a conversation with her about whether it would matter if it had been another child who was left, and she said it wouldn't have made a difference.
Stupid dream, I know. But I woke up believing it had absolutely nothing to do with me. Then, last week, I was sitting in a meeting that had nothing to do with this either, and it hit me. If one of my children dies, I'll have three gone and only one left. But I normally think of myself as only having three children (just like the friend my brain chose for the dream), not two, because one of my children who died was a miscarriage. So the dream represented my fears exactly. And the reason I dreamt about my friend losing her children instead of me was that with my friend, the child who is left is generic. If it had been a dream about me, I would have had to have a specific one of my girls die, and then it would have been about that specific girl, rather than about my fears in general.
So I guess the truth is that I'm afraid one of my girls will die. Not either in particular, but one.
It makes sense that this is going through my head a lot, because I've spent the last week editing video and audio of a conference I gave which was quite emotional, when I dealt with the whole question of what we do when tragedy strikes. When it comes down to it, is God enough? Will you be able to focus on the hope of heaven, or will you let tragedy destroy you? I've spoken about it a ton lately, but polishing the video and audio and getting it ready to ship out to people just had those words going round and round in my head, at the same time as the anniversary of my son's death came along.
So here's my question for all of us: how do we handle that paralyzing fear? One response, of course, is to put our children in a bubble so that nothing can possibly hurt them. That's a dumb thing to do, because it limits their life. How can you live a big life, or live for what God has dreamed for them, if they're stuck in a bubble? If they are prohibited from having important formative experiences, including experiences which will help them mature and take on responsibility, then how can they accomplish what God has for them? So bubbles are exactly the wrong thing to do. They don't protect our children; they limit them.
To me it's not a parenting issue as much as a trust issue. I almost daily have to go to God and ask Him to help me live my life for Him, and not for my family. I love my family, but I have to hold them with an open hand, knowing that they are His first. And if anything does happen to them, they are still His, as am I. And this life is but a short beginning to our real life, which will be in heaven.
I know that, but the thought of being without them still stops your heart cold, sometimes, doesn't it? There really is not solution except to keep going to God in prayer, and to keep falling in love with Him, so that He will always be enough to carry you. Most likely nothing will happen to our loved ones. Statistics say that they'll be fine. But it's still hard when so much of our hearts are wrapped up in our kids.
So let me just ask you today: what are you living for? Are you living for your kids, or do you see them as gifts from God where you are the steward? Can you raise them towards independence, and encourage them to fly, because they're in His hands, and not just yours? And can you remember that God is enough?
Those are heavy questions. They may cause some tears. But I think all mothers need to deal with them and get them straight before God. He is big enough to cast all of our fears on, so let's do it!
I'm on Twitter. I love Twitter. I can send out little soundbites about my day, complain about aches and pains or the weather, or make little jokes, and get instant feedback. It's fun!
And I have a lot of followers, and I follow quite a few. Yesterday this Tweet came across the board from a certified Life Coach. She said:
Start by blessing yourself. “May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I live with ease.”
I thought this was interesting. I'm speaking at a retreat as you read this (I actually wrote this post and scheduled it to appear today), and I'm speaking exactly AGAINST all of those things.
Too often our primary prayers are for our own health, safety, happiness and well-being. And yet that was never what Jesus prayed for his followers, and it wasn't what Paul prayed for his spiritual children.
Sometimes it is only through adversity that we really grow. It's like in Finding Nemo. Remember that scene, near the end of the movie, when dad Marlin is distraught because it looks like he will never be able to rescue Nemo? And Dorrie tries to cheer him up, which makes Marlin even more irritated.
"Don't you understand?!?" he cries. "I promised him that nothing would ever happen to him!". "Well, that's a funny thing to promise," replies Dorrie. "Because if nothing ever happened to him, then nothing would ever happen to him."
I think there's a lot of spiritual wisdom in that fish. The point is not what happens to us in life; it's how we respond, and whether we allow God to turn it into good. And that's the attitude that Paul takes. He prays that God will help the Ephesians to understand how long and high and wide and deep is the love of Christ. He prays that they may grow in wisdom and understanding. In Colossians he prays that they may bear fruit in every good work, and they may know the knowledge and wisdom and will of God.
Aren't those things more important? You see, if we understand how much God loves us; if we grow in understanding; if we bear fruit; if we grow in unity and love; then no matter what happens to us, we'll be fine. But if we concentrate our prayers on good things happening, then we not only lose out on opportunities to grow; we also leave ourselves unprepared with bad things do happen.
And the same goes with prayers for our children. Are you consumed for praying for their safety? Are you constantly praying that God will give them good lives? Why not pray, instead, that they may grow in wisdom and understanding? Because if they do that, and if they understand how much God loves them, they'll be fine. They'll soar. They'll fly. No matter the circumstances.
When we worry about circumstances, we become slaves to this life. When we concentrate on God, we actually become free. So stop praying for your own safety and happiness and well-being, and pray for your heart. Of course, there's nothing wrong with asking God for safety at times, but if this is the predominant prayer, you have a problem. Your soul is worth so much more; ask God to nourish it this weekend!
And here's something else you may enjoy: an article I wrote a few years ago on how to Parent without Fear about exactly this topic!
My husband is a pediatrician, and it seems that over this weekend we've seen a number of accidents involving children and ATVs. No deaths (though there was one a few weeks ago near where I live), and Keith himself hasn't treated them. He's just heard through the grapevine.
It only takes a second for something really bad to happen. Maybe it comes from already having had a child die, but I often look at my girls when we're all laughing together, and I say to myself, "I am going to bottle this up." The truth is you just never know what's around the corner.
Even if we eliminate as much risk as possible, though, you never can be sure. And that's what's so hard as a parent. Are you going to live your life petrified that something could happen, and so become overprotective, or are we going to release our kids, confident that no matter what happens we're all in God's hands?
That's a really hard point to get to. I've had several experiences in my life where I had to come face to face with God and realize that He is my foundation, and not my husband, not my kids, not anything else. It's an awfully uncomfortable feeling, because for some reason we often think that as soon as we do surrender everything to God, and say to Him, "You are enough," that He's going to swoop down and steal everything that matters to us.
Nothing could be sillier. Do we think our kids are safe as long as we don't surrender them to God? And yet that process of handing our kids to Him is such an emotional one, because we are so wrapped up in them. How could we possibly separate from them?
It's not that I think anything actually will happen to my kids. And sometimes I get this cold chill run up my spine when I wonder what I would do if... But the truth is that if that day did come, I know God would carry me through it, because He carried me through before. But since that day is not here yet, I would rather live in the here and now and enjoy my kids, instead of worrying about all the things that I might one day have to deal with! If we can get to that point of trusting God, it is much easier to cope with today.
I've written a couple of articles about this. You can read one here. Here's how another one begins:
A little girl disappears without a trace. A three-year-old drowns when he wanders off from a family reunion. Hardly a day passes without hearing horrors like these, making you shiver as the unthinkable flashes through your mind.
Becoming a parent is not as simple as entering other stages in your life. It's more like being engulfed by a violent tornado and flung into the land of Oz. Everything is foreign and frightening. Once you're a parent, the world, instead of being full of possibilities, offers unlimited dangers.
For the most part this is instinctual. God wired us to be fiercely protective of our children to ensure we would care for them. Why else would we endure people who cry incessantly and throw up repeatedly? Last year as my daughters and I were emptying one of our compost bins, I inadvertently hit a mouse's nest with my shovel. As five pink babies fell to the ground, their screeching mother bravely darted in and out of the bin to rescue each one. She needn't have bothered; I was far too queasy to kill either her or her squirming offspring. But it was a vivid example of how mothers will sacrifice themselves for their children. As soon as we become parents, we instinctively wrap our arms around our kids and hold on tightly so nothing bad will happen.
The problem, of course, is that no matter how hard we try, we can't protect our kids from everything. And when we do try, we may have the opposite effect: we may raise immature children who make poor decisions. Obviously this is not our intention. Yet it's easy to fall into this trap if we let our fears for our children take our eyes off of God.
But let me say this first: I used to pray constantly for my kids' safety. All my prayers went like this: "Dear God, don't let anything happen to them. Put angels around them. Protect them. Etc. Etc."
Then Columbine happened, and I heard the story of Cassie Bernall saying "yes" when the gunmen asked her if she believed in God. And I realized that's what I would want my children to do, too. There was something I wanted even more than safety.
I started weeping as soon as I thought of that, because it felt like they were already dying. And yet that realization started to free me. I had to focus not only on their physical safety, but even more importantly, their spiritual growth.
What about you? Is this something you struggle with? Are you scared to trust God with your kids? Tell me about it in the comments!
My talk, "Do You Believe God Loves You?", focuses on why it's so hard to surrender things to God. You can puchase the CD or the download here.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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