Some worries last all of about 3 seconds. (I have to admit, I might have benefited from worrying about soda causing harm to my body a WEE bit longer and consequently maybe swearing off the stuff, but too great is my love for the bubbly, I'm afraid.) Some worries are easily solved. Some are just... NOT.
Maybe the worry that has caused me the most anguish over the longest period of time? My skills as a mom. Because isn't it true, ladies, that no matter how much we do for our kids (or don't do), we always feel like we could have done just a little bit more? Or - even worse - that even if we had tried our hardest, it just wouldn't cut it... that it wouldn't be good enough?
Oy. And I was just expecting some sleep issues, poopy diapers, snuggles, and messy noses when I got pregnant the first time.
And don't get me wrong: I am not just a constant worrier, but I've got, like, a freaking PhD in the subject. Worrying about whether giving my kids graham crackers over spinach was a good idea? Naw. Too easily dismissed. Too ELEMENTARY. No, I've graduated on to the worries that will both be difficult to solve AND will keep me up for many nights because they're so far in the future. The latest? That one of my boys - or both - will get mercilessly picked on when they're in school. (Note: Aidan is not even two years old. Baby V isn't even BORN yet.) I got picked on a LOT when I was in middle and high school, not in an obvious physical way like I think boys get picked on, but in that horribly undermining, catty way that we girls can be so good at. Getting punched in the face might have been more terrifying in the moment, but the wounds that come from hearing you just don't belong take much, much longer to heal. Unhealed by the time you get knocked up as a thirty-something adult? Yeah. Transferred on to your own kids.
I'm quietly thanking God for NOT having a daughter just yet for that very reason.
These are issues I've been working through for years now, feeling inadequate, feeling left out, feeling like a sideshow freak instead of accepted and loved. It's something I would really love NOT to pass on to my kids, but as much as I think I've resolved them, they come roaring back. Recently, I had some key events happen in my life that made all of those feelings, which I had previously only brought out of hiding with kid gloves, large tongs, and the most delicate of handling on rarest of occasions, pouring and tumbling out in a big messy glob, all over the side of a Colorado mountain. Feeling left out and rejected because I screwed up, wasn't good enough? Bigger than I'd felt in a long, long, long, LONG time. It pained my present AND sent my worrywart nature into serious overdrive. I could hardly prepare a bottle of milk for my son without having a mini-breakdown all over again.
It's been a few months, several Starbucks mochas with extra whip, several hard but necessary conversations from people who love me more than I truly deserve, and lots of digging into the messy places to get me to today, where I'm slowly, doggedly, opposite-of-efficiently learning that God? Never ever rejected me. Never ever told me I screwed up so bad that I was out of His loving grace. Never ever left me unprotected, even during those super-painful, awkward years of adolescence when all I wanted was to either blend in or disappear entirely. And He never, ever will do those things. And He loves me too, too much to let me continue in self-destructive behaviors, and if the loving thing to do is to pull me out of comfortable spaces and familiar groups, well, He will. Because He LOVES me and wants more for me than the mud and the dirt I'd rather sit in because it's comfortable and familiar. That's entirely the opposite of rejection and exclusion.
Part two of that lesson is realizing the same principle applies to Aidan. And to my unborn son. And to everyone I love and carry close to my heart. Deep down, it's a trust issue: do I trust God, even when I don't understand why things happen the way they do? Do I trust that He'll still be in complete control, even when I feel like I have no control... and am I OK with not having any control? Do I trust Him with those whom I love most in this world, my sweet son with his tender little curls and dimpled cheeks and wobbly, chubby legs that I want to protect from every bad thing out there in the world?
I confess: I worry. I worry still. I have every reassurance, more than ample evidence that He's got me covered, and yet, I worry. Like an old ratty security blanket, I pick up my worry, again and again. And conveniently remember only the barbs, the stings, the screw-ups of my life, and I wrap that blanket so tight around myself that I cannot breathe.
I do not want to suffocate my kids in the same way. I love them too much to let my neuroses be my lasting legacy.
One of the blogs I regularly follow is written by a super-lovely woman of incredible faith, all the way out in the Midwest where they have lots of corn and fields and cows and cow poop. She recently gave birth to her second child, a most handsome boy named Levi, nearly a year after she lost her first child, Cora, to neuroblastoma at age eleven months. If there's anyone I know that has reason to be skittish and worrisome, well, she's got more reason than I do. Aidan's biggest injuries thus far have consisted of a few head bonks on the carpet, a fingernail cut too close, and some inflamed eardrums quickly cleared up by antibiotics. Certainly not a deadly cancer.
Anyway, she recently celebrated Cora's "heavenly anniversary", one year to the day after she sent her sweet girl into the arms of Jesus. And she posted this quote:
Never look ahead to the changes and challenges of this life in fear. Instead, as they arise look at them with the full assurance that God, whose you are, will deliver you out of them. Hasn't He kept you safe up to now? So hold His loving hand tightly and He will lead you safely through all things. And when you cannot stand, He will carry you in His arms.
Do not look ahead to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you His unwavering strength that you may bear it. Be at peace, then, and set aside all anxious thoughts and worries.
Francis de Sales
Wow.
I pray for little boys that grow into strong men of God... not weak men who have been shielded from every little sting. I want them to have the warrior heart of Jesus, but yet, I fear the scrapes and the scars. Doesn't every great hero have a scar or two to show? Don't I have my own scars to prove that God gave me that unwavering strength? Is my faith not thousands of times deeper than it was before the storms and the stings and the dark moments... because He brought me through every single time?
Okay, so I think I'll still cry a little bit, maybe in secret, if one of my boys comes home and says that someone called him a name or pushed him down to the ground. And I'm probably still going to worry about things completely out of my control. But I want to walk with that constant assurance that I - and my sweet boys - will always be protected... or given extraordinary, Godly strength to bear whatever circumstances come our way.
Because we are that LOVED.
Be at peace, then, and set aside all anxious thoughts and worries.
Okay, Daddy.
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