Learning from the kids

My entire school years experience was shrouded by insecurity and jealousy.  As sure as I had white, freckly skin, I had a jealous soul.  And what a burden it was!!  It tainted so many decisions and relationships; it felt like noticing an eyelash stuck under my contact in the middle of algebra, irritating but seemingly unresolvable at the time.  With this background in mind, I was giving one of my pep talks to the kids while we were driving just the other day.  But you know how kids are and how things like this often go, they ended up teaching me the lesson instead.

I lose track of details like context, but basically we were talking about their friends at school and I was telling them it’s not good manners to tell who they got together with over the weekend or who came to play.  Unless someone asks them directly, it’s not polite to just to throw information out there. You just wouldn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, they may feel left out if other friends got together and they weren’t invited.  Be considerate, kind.  Pretty straight-forward doctrine I thought.

But that’s where it turned on me.  Without pause, they corrected me. “I’d be happy if my friends got together.  I want them to have fun together.”  They both concurred, “Yeah, it’s fun for them.”  Completely blindsided me.  I couldn’t believe they didn’t get what I was talking about.  I knew their dad lived like that, but I thought he was an outlier, not interested in playing on the same social field as the rest of us. I figured most kids naturally grow up with the same mindset I had: fettered and encumbered by friendship triangles and dramatic altercations.  But for whatever reason, our kids have never really been affected the way I had been.

Somehow in just one generation, things have apparently turned downside up.  Of course I was surprised at their declarations, but more than anything I was elated!  Thrilled beyond words that my kids aren’t weighted down by the same insecurities I’d been tethered to my whole life.  They are completely unshackled and relaxed. What a blessing to be so liberated at such a young age, and what a healthy perspective.

As I mulled over their angle, and then as we finished our drive, I recognized something that surprised me even more than what they’d just told me.  I agreed with them. I realized I didn’t feel that way anymore either. I am happy when different groups of friends get together.  I love it when good things happen to people I care about.  In fact, I pray for it.  I hope for their successes and well-being. I’ve prayed many times for my friends to find other friends, to be invited and included. I’m truly astonished that I can say this.  Because it’s been such a long and arduous odyssey.  But, in all honesty, I have to admit I’m not even entirely sure it’s completely over some days.

Because on some level, I’m still occasionally at odds with my natural tendency, maybe like a recovering alcoholic for whom drink might still hold allure in an insecure moment. I’ll admit I may have a few strings attached to my former weakness, and every now and then a social news rundown still conjures up feelings of rejection or wonderment as to why I hadn’t been invited too.   But it isn’t as consuming or heartbreaking as I made it be back when I was their age, and I try to reframe it all and be glad for friends who are mingling without me, grateful they’ve found friendship and commonality. Even this small mindful advancement still surprises me when I really take stock of where I’ve been. I haven’t arrived, but with my kids up ahead, I feel them silently cheering me on, not realizing the influence their quiet confidence has on me. 

It sort of blows my mind that they’re so at ease with themselves and their social network.  So calm and level where I would’ve been teary and down on myself. They simply shrug their shoulders when there’s drama surrounding them or when they haven’t been included, and we’re on to the next topic. I admire this so much, they inspire me and remind me that theirs is a better way.  It’s not as if all is rosy with friendships; jr. high and high school inescapably require figuring out relationships and navigating some rough patches.  But I love that they somehow got a head start, that they don’t seem to worry about the same things that have impeded me for so much of my life.  And I am humbled. Grateful for our kids who, like yours, continue to remind me to open my heart, to be vulnerable and accepting, kids who are the real educators in our family. 

An Easter week

Why is it the one day we’re allowed and even encouraged to sleep in we can’t?  I was awake in the fives.  6:36 and I knew Todd was awake as well.  It’s one thing when it’s warm, we’ll take off on our five mile walk down the deserted street, noting deer and pheasants, an occasional farmer in a truck.  But with snow and temps in the 20s, we’re good to stay inside.  I asked what he’d do if he got up.  But that’s just it, it’s not Saturday, there aren’t any projects, no Lowe’s trips, no breakfast out, no hunting or fishing to rush off to.  It’s Easter morning.  I told him I just had to write a bit.  He could tend to the chicks and make a fire and do the dishes, then we could make breakfast.  I also need to finish Little Women from last night; I’m constantly missing the last twenty minutes of movies when we’re downstairs on the couch and it’s dark and cozy and I’m full of ice cream.  Good grief.

Anyway, this is the least spiritual introduction to Easter morning you’ve probably ever read.  But I’ve never really cared for Easter as a grown up. As a kid I loved it so much.  Baskets full of treats.  Dressing up for church.  A special dinner with the extended family.  I don’t know that my mom ever took us to an egg hunt, and I don’t recall her hiding eggs in our little apartment; I think I did that for my little sisters? I think we may have dyed eggs, but I honestly don’t remember what that would’ve looked like, I can’t picture it.  As a mom, I’ve done all the parts all of you do, but it’s stressful to me to get basket fillers.  Like stocking stuffers.  Too much? Probably not enough. What kinds of candy do they like again? I can never remember.  When they were little it was easy: bubbles, play dough, a little board book about Jesus.  I just want to get it right, and so expectations like birthdays and holidays kind of test me.  Plus I’m so not into pastels and chicks and crosses.

So this is where I am.  I went to sleep after our movie with a heavy, heavy heart.  I just remembered that I didn’t do a single thing for our son in college.  Not a bag of candy, not a card, not money to buy a ham, nothing.  I didn’t cry.  Not like that.  But my heart ached.  I had thought about it earlier in the week for just the briefest of seconds.  And then it left me.  In another year I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself, my mom could have him for a nice dinner.  But this year he’s left to his own devises.  He doesn’t have extra money for stuff like that.  Why didn’t I at least send him some Starburst jelly beans and a love note?  I woke up this morning remembering my lapse.  And remembering how I prayed myself to sleep for something good to happen to him today to make up for my lack.  What that would be, I have no idea, I’m not confident even Christ can find a way to make candy appear at a random college kid’s apartment during a quarantine.  I feel like a failure.  I can do something for finals, but Easter? Breaks my heart to not have fulfilled my mom part.  But still I prayed and plead.  Not for candy, but for it to be ok.  Tiny failure I know.  But my heart is always tender when it comes to my kids and my lapses.

As I’ve thought about Easter this week, I had plenty of time, I should’ve had a solid schedule and plan.  But my study was all over the place.  I’ve listened to talks, I’ve read about the events and people, I’ve watched little videos, I’ve written a bit.  But I don’t think it’s really impacted our family, we kind of just go through the motions and hope something sticks. I think our lives are too easy to realize what it all means.

But in the tiniest ways this week, I’ve had Christ more on my mind than usual, maybe because I’ve been thinking of the days of his last week, maybe because of the uncertainties in the world, maybe—hopefully—just because he’s becoming that much more to me.

I thought of him as I shoveled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of heavy manure and carted it to garden boxes and tried to tip the wheelbarrow load into the boxes without losing it all.  Heavy, hard work for me; I don’t think lifting weights is helping, I’m just not that strong.  I ended up losing an occasional load.  It was hard to get the wheelbarrow up and over the edges. I looked forward to the end.  Until Todd told me we’d just go through them all and keep filling till our pile is gone.  We moved rock as well, even heavier.  We moved each rock by hand. I thought about Christ and how heavy his loads in life—and death—were.  How he had to keep going and going and going when he wanted to quit.  Because it all felt so heavy.

I thought about him when I skinned my knee.  Such a small wound.  Of course there was blood.  It stung when I washed it off later.  I couldn’t kneel like usual.  I felt it in the sheets even.  So small.  But it reminded me of his pains.  How on earth could he have lasted?  I hate that part of the movie. I always look away, I can’t bear it.  I thought about him as I felt my own sliver of pain this week.

I thought about his temptations as I’ve been scrolling through hundreds of movies.  I want so much to be close to him, to have his spirit with me.  I’m trying so hard to be worthy of it and of him.  For me, this entails making choices.  I know people have real temptations.  I have very few.  A crude movie, the enticement to make a jab instead of turning the other cheek, the desire to just give in to laziness and not checking in with people, the sigh that I’ll have to get out of bed if we want to do family prayer.  Or my own prayer.  I haven’t been tempted in huge ways, I don’t know that I ever have.  But I can’t help but think about him always making the right choice.  His example has given me strength as I’ve practiced doing the same.

I thought about how thirsty I was working in the heat the other day.  I thought about his plea, “I thirst.”  And how easy it would be for me to drink cool clean water or at least wet my mouth.  I thought about how uncomfortable and consuming that desire would’ve been.  I had the smallest experience with it, but it made me appreciate his calmness, his power over himself, his humanness.

I thought about him at times when I felt hungry.  It’s a consuming, inescapable state, I’m not good at just going about my day and ignoring it.  How he did that for any length of time, I have no idea. I also happened upon a picture of prisoners from camps, skeletons unlike any other pictures I’d seen.  I couldn’t reconcile the fact that they were standing up; they looked more desperate than those in death piles.  I felt weak.  Selfish.  Small.  Unaccustomed to hardship, deprivation, and true misery.  I thought about the comforts of my regular life.  And I can’t help but ask myself why.  And what am I contributing, what am I even doing with everything I have?  I wonder about this a lot.  And how he carried on hungry.

I’ve felt rejected by my own. :)  My little kids don’t seem to want anything to do with spiritual church stuff.  I feel like I have the most important answer to life to give them but it’s not real to them yet.  He’s not real.  Not in the way that he’s who they turn to when life is troubling.  Mostly because I don’t know that they’ve had troubling experiences yet.  I’ll admit I was exactly the same way.  Probably most of us have been.  I wish I had the power and persuasion to help them know him at a younger time of their lives.  But I know from him that love is patient and kind, not rushed and harried and urgent.  Because of him, I’m ok with our slower pace.  With where we all are in our journey.

I thought about my heart this week.  I’ve of course felt it crack.  I’ve felt the heavy weight of being misjudged, of feeling anxious and tense, of the unknown, of not knowing how to proceed to make things better.  I thought about how Christ maybe already knows how all of it feels.  We talked about this earlier this week as a family; that’s just it, he does know.  We talked about him experiencing regular life so he understands what we’re going through.  We explained that just because our experiences as parents aren’t exactly like the ones the kids are going through, we have gone through similar things.  We know what sadness, jealousy, failure, uncertainty, grief, and longing all feel like.  In some way, I have no idea how, I know Jesus is the same but in a more complete, perfect sense.  How he knows the fragile nature of a mother heart, I have no idea.  How he knows what it’s like to have regret over failings and missed opportunities, same.  So many things I wonder about.  How, I just don’t know.  I just know.

So yeah, my thoughts have been all over the place this week.  I never made it through all my scriptures I planned on.  I’ve got a hodgepodge of information, images, ideas, and feelings floating around in my head and heart.  I have regrets.  I wonder why I never did those fun Easter traditions, why we don’t make it a more spiritual week, and how I could’ve done more to instill a love and awe in my children for the One person I love more than anything.  I wonder if it can still be ok.  And as I think about it all, I think for sure.  Definitely.  Everything I know and love about my Savior says yes.  There is time.  There is no rush.  There are answers.  There is peace.  There is a way he can fill in all the gaps.  There is a way to make more of myself than I currently am.  There is power in loving like he loves.  There is the answer to everything.

And so as we greet the early snowy Easter morning, I have to really think about life all those years ago.  It’s crazy hard to wrap my head around.  I can’t imagine being a character in his story.  I wonder how I would feel and be.  I wonder how I will feel and be.  Because I know I’ll have a chance to see him.  To thank him.  I don’t think I’ll have any words.  But I know because of how I feel in my heart that it’s all real.  He is the one thing in life I’m sure about.  And so I’m grateful for all the thoughts.  All the experiences I have that remind me of him.  All the tiny discomforts, the smallest of trials, the inklings of heartbreak.  I’m thankful for my Savior who accepts me right where I am, who knows me and my heart and who is always right up close waiting and ready and willing to be my everything.