Present

Time keeps on ticking. It keeps on pummeling through, slow and steady. Sometimes it drags and drags, sometimes you can't slow it down. Funny how our feelings make the steady rhythm of time feel different.

People tell parents not to take it for granted, the snuggles the tiredness, the littleness of the babies. They tell you to cherish the tears and all of the ugliness because one day it will be gone. The truth is, America, you won't know it when it is. You will not realize it's your last time giving them a bath, or washing their hair. You won't know the last time that they climb in your lap and squeeze your cheeks in their hands. You won't know the last time they wobble over to you and fall in to your arms. You won't know the last time you feed them their food, or need to clean up their face after dinner. You won't know the last time a question like "Would you like me to hold your hand" no longer is answered with YES! Please be with me Mommy! but instead will get a casual shoulder shrug and a If you want to. You won't realize it until it happens, and that's when you'll feel sad.

We are raising independence. It's one of the most beautiful actions I have ever made. It very well could be the best thing I've ever done. Not in terms of their life choices, or who they grow up to be, but in the very act of raising independence. Their choices, careers, spouses, etc are their own. I will not wear a badge of honor or dishonor in regards to them. But their independence? That's all us (and Jesus. Always Jesus.).

From the moment of my oldest's birth, independence has been the goal, and the heartache. When she left my body, I remember sobbing to her Daddy This is her first step of not needing me anymore. He kind of chuckled and told me I was ridiculous. We were caring for a newborn baby, she clearly was not independent, but her physical life was no longer dependent on mine. Her heart beat did not need mine to keep going. Her lungs did not need mine to keep breathing. Her body was on its own now. We were no longer one flesh, but now two, and it hurt my heart.

These days, my first born looks closer and closer to an adult. Her demeanor and attitude is very serious and intense. The little girl who used to giggle and laugh is still in there, but the complexities of growing up are moving in. I remember her telling me just a few years ago that she didn't want to grow up, because she always wanted me to take care of her. I remember telling her that it happens gradually, she probably won't notice until one day she'll look back and realize it's happened. I told her Don't take any moment for granted. In the blink of an eye, you will be an adult.

I feel proud of her independence. But I would be a liar if I said I didn't miss the days when her needs from me were more pronounced and less cryptic. I long for the days when the demands were obvious. I miss the simplicity.

We have entered in to the dance of grey areas and hazy lines. It's as if the fog has rolled in and the ground is hidden. We know it's there, we know we're standing on it, but we can't see it.

I'm not confused, America. I know she needs me now just as much (if not more so) than she did then. I understand that our work is not complete. I grasp that as long as there is breath in my lungs, it never will be. I will always be advocating, educating, supporting, encouraging, correcting, and on and on.

When they tell you not to take it for granted, what they really mean is this: enjoy the exhausting simplicity. Enjoy the simple demands and questions. Revel in the child who calls for you, cries for you, looks to you.

As the mom of triplets, I completely grasp how exhausting it all is. Every single moment of parenting is daunting. Without Jesus, I don't think I could handle it. The sheer magnitude of the responsibility is enough to make any sane person's knees buckle. A person's whole life is dependent on you not being a selfish asshole (which happens to be exactly what I am). It's completely insane! But it's also beautiful. It's fantastically, painfully beautiful. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Failure To Choose What is Right

Nuggets,

I don't feel like being forgiving. I don't feel like hoping for the best and believing in the good. This morning I feel like feeling sorry for myself. I want to be a victim right now. I want to wallow and revel in all the oh-woe-is-me's that are dancing around in my brain. I want to spew hateful, unforgiving words that can never be taken back, and I want to not feel sorry about now they hurt. I want to say all of the things that I don't say, and dive head first in to the muddy water that is clouding up my brain. I want to throw sticks and stones and break bones. And I did.

Damn it, I did.

I screamed and hurled and said all of the unspoken disappointments out loud. I was hateful and cruel, and the Love of our Savior was nowhere in it. There is no ability for me to doctor it up. There is no defense. I unloaded a plethora of destruction at the heart of your Dad this morning. I didn't win anything. I lost.

Why am I telling you this, nuggets? You weren't even awake to hear any of it. You weren't present to witness the hideous components of my sinful, unforgiving heart. You didn't feel my desire for vengeance. You didn't experience the hate my veins were surging with.

I wish I could say that before he left, Love was restored to my wicked heart, but it wasn't. I sent him off to work in that hateful soup of words. I'm sitting here now flickering between good and evil... wanting to nurse the wounds of betrayal and heartbreak that I legitimately feel, and knowing that it serves no purpose but to destroy, both your father and myself.

I can't control your father's actions. I can't make him do the right things. I can't force him to be wise or discerning. I can't compel him to choose love instead of selfishness. I can't. I want to, but I can't. Your dad is amazing. He is gentle and patient. He is quiet and sincere. He is filled with many beautiful, beautiful attributes that I desire in myself. He is also filled with many, many flaws (just like me).

We have a beautiful love, your dad and I. It is something rare, that is valuable and enviable and I completely get how it could create an illusion of what Love is "supposed" to be. I suppose I'm telling you about the ugliness of my heart this morning, because I want you rooted in reality about marriage. It is hard. It hurts like hell. Sometimes you'll be the one doing the hurting, and sometimes you'll be the one hurt. Sometimes both.

Your father hurts me, a lot. I have done my fair share of damage to him. We don't live in an illusion of perfection. We're a mess. We do terrible things. We say terrible things. We are flawed.

I owe your father an apology. And I will do it. It's not about what he did to me, or failed to do. The apology is not about making him "see" or being afraid that he didn't grasp how much he hurt me. I will apologize because my behavior was wicked. I will apologize and seek forgiveness because Love demands mercy and forgiveness from my heart, over and over and over again. Love commands me to respond with gentleness. Love demands that I hope for the best, believe in the best, assume the best, of your father. Love commands me to persevere. It's not about him. It's about me.

Whomever you marry, is going to hurt you like hell. They're going to hurt you in ways you could never have imagined. You will evaluate and re evaluate over and over again what on earth you have gotten yourself in to. You will want vengeance. You will want to make them pay, because in your own hearts, you'll think, stupidly, that it will somehow make them grasp the blow that they've dealt you. It won't. It will only serve to make the wounds bigger... both in yourself and in your spouse.

I hate when I choose not to Love.