Patience

I’m not a patient person.  While I like to think I have moments where I can exhibit some measure of patience, by and large, this is not a word most people would use to describe my character.

And yet, patience is one of the traits I find I most need as a mom.  So many of my parenting issues are somehow related to my lack of patience:

The kids take longer than the time I have allotted to get dressed, and I find myself getting overly irritated simply because I want them to stay on my schedule.

My boys are telling me a super-long story with lots of details and I feel myself getting very antsy because I’m trying to get on to the next task.

I’m repeating myself for the 337^th time in a day and I’m getting angrier than the situation warrants because in my impatience, I want my children to understand, respond and conform their behavior all right now. 

Not surprisingly, one of the most frequently-uttered prayers in our house is for me to be patient:  “Jesus, I need you to help me to be patient with the boys and not to allow my impatience to lead to irritation or anger.”  Sounds like an okay prayer, though if I’m being completely honest, I’ve often found myself even getting irritated at God that He’s not answering this particular prayer fast enough.  “I want to be patient – and I want that yesterday, or at least right now.” 

Just this past week, though, God spoke something to me that hit me hard in the moment and has continued to convict me on this issue.  He showed me that I’ve been praying the wrong prayer.  Me, in my self-centered “it’s all about me” humanity, has been asking God to “help me” in my efforts.  I put the burden on me and have relegated God to being the helper. Even writing this now, I’m amazed at my own arrogance. But putting God in the passenger’s seat is not how God changes me.  I do not transform myself into the image of God.  Rather, it’s a work of the Spirit from the inside out.  (Romans 8).

Now before I go too far down that road, I know scripture calls the Holy Spirit our “parakletos”, a word often translated as “helper”.  (John 14:16).  And while I’m not disputing this function of the Holy Spirit, I’m simply saying in this particular situation, God showed me that I’m getting the ordering of things wrong.  Yes, the Holy Spirit is my Helper, but I can’t do the work of changing myself.  Real meaningful character change is a function of the Spirit working in me.  Indeed, for that reason, patience is identified as a “fruit” of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) not a “fruit” of my own good works or well-meaning efforts.

So the more I allow God to pour His love into me, the more He can transform me into the woman He wants me to be.  It’s not about my own efforts to “be more patient”, but is about allowing God to fill me so I can be changed more and more to conform to His image.  (Rom 8:29).  

Trust

He was an alcoholic.  I knew that. 

He had an insatiable porn addiction.  I had no clue.

Apparently, while I spent morning, noon and night at work, my ex-husband was on the internet, prowling from one obscene website to the next.   He spent countless hours everyday pandering to this addiction.  I eventually learned that he would even sneak out of our bed in the middle of the night to live in a virtual world feeding his lust and curiosity. 

I never thought to look through an internet search history.  I never stumbled upon a suspicious credit card charge.  Not once did I even sense his absence from our bed.  I really was clueless.  

It turns out there was a lot I didn’t know.  How could I have been so unaware?

Looking back, I know I lived with a belief that his experience was my experience and I trusted him implicitly.  Perhaps I should really say I trusted him naively.  I thought he was as fulfilled in our marriage as I was.  I thought his values were the same as mine.  I thought he was doing what he said he was doing.  I never even considered the possibility that he might be living a life completely unknown to me.  Seriously, it didn’t even occur to me that he wasn’t on the exact same page as me. 

So when I finally learned about what was really going on, I was devastated, not just because of the nature of his actions, but perhaps even more because I felt so stupid.  I felt stupid for trusting someone who was obviously so untrustworthy.  I felt stupid because so many other people knew what he was doing but I didn’t.  I felt stupid thinking I must have missed obvious signs.  I felt stupid for having been duped so readily, so easily, and so frequently. 

But is trusting someone stupid?  Would I rather trust and risk it being violated again, or choose to live a life where I never trust anyone ever? 

I had to wrestle with that issue for a long time.  Finally, though, I had to face the fact that I could go through the rest of my life having “trust” issues, or I could figure out how to move forward.  One of my favorite verses reminds me that “the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy but that Jesus came to give me life, and life to the fullest.”  (John 10:10).  Those words empower me to face whatever challenge is before me since I’m unwilling to succumb to the alternative, namely, allowing Satan to have victory in my life. 

So to face this challenge, I had to come to terms with the fact that it was his behavior that was wrong and his behavior that needed to be changed.  He was not trustworthy.  He took advantage of my trust.  He betrayed my implicit confidence in him. The answer to his untrustworthiness was not for me to never trust again.  Certainly, I could be “wiser” in trusting people in the future, but making a vow that “I’ll never trust anyone again” simply could not be the answer. 

But we often make vows like this:  vows that are borne out of extreme hurt, pain, or disappointment; vows that can shape our entire future life course.  These vows have great power.  But I don’t want the rest of my life to be shaped by someone else’s actions, by somebody else’s brokenness, or by their wrongdoing.  Trust is necessary, in varying degrees, in all of my relationships.  It only makes sense that the enemy definitely wants to “steal, kill and destroy” those relationships by keeping me from ever trusting again.  But that’s not the life Jesus died to give me.  And it’s not the life I choose to live.

Correction

I think I overcorrect my children. 

Some of you reading this who know my kids may think their behavior could use MORE correction, not less.  :) But seriously, I struggle with this. 

Like most moms, my greatest influence on my mothering is my own mom.  I had a terrific mom – still do – but I also grew up in a very legalistic religion.  Rules and regulations with plenty of nicely worded ‘thou shalls and thou shall nots’ permeated the teaching.  Of course, it was all under the guise of being “biblical”. 

Though I’ve been away from that religion for decades, that legalism shaped me as I was growing up and still rears its head.  While I’ve long since discovered what it means to live in “grace” I sometimes find legalism permeating my mothering. 

You see, I’m not always certain what behavior needs to be corrected and what does not.  Shouldn’t every infraction be addressed?  What is simply immaturity, i.e. kids being kids?  Or is acknowledging that “they’re being boys” really just me giving an excuse for bad behavior?  When do I need to ignore something and when do I need to intervene?  If I extend grace or mercy towards my kids, is that really the best choice, or am I teaching them they don’t really need to obey or that the rules will only be enforced “sometimes”?  I don’t necessarily think these thoughts on a conscious level in the moment, but I know they undergird some of my in-the-moment choices – especially when I’m tired or emotional.  That is when these doubts run rampant.

The problem with legalism is that it is grounded in fear – fear that bad consequences will happen if all the rules are not obeyed perfectly.  When I’m being a legalistic mom, I’m really operating out of a fear that unless I’m on top of every single issue, every single time, my kids will grow up to be banshees.  That’s my fear-based thinking.

But my rational mind tells me that it simply cannot be that every single action needs correction.  Moreover, when I consider how God parents me, I don’t see Him attacking my every shortcoming.  Instead, God focuses on particular areas of my life and works on those.  He doesn’t nit-pick my every move.  Indeed, I couldn’t even imagine how overwhelmed I’d feel if He focused on my every infraction:

“Lisa, you didn’t do your devo this morning.  In fact, you haven’t prayed for your kids in the past two days.  No, you may not speak to your husband that way.  Was that anger I heard in your voice?  You need to sit in your room until your attitude improves.  Did you not do any laundry?  Was that another piece of chocolate you ate?  Did you really just lie to that person?” 

And on, and on He could go. 

But He doesn’t.  My God lets an awful lot of my behavior slide.  I know it’s not because He’s perfectly pleased with me, but rather that He knows what to focus on and what to leave for another day.  He “knows how I am formed, and that I am only dust.”  (Psalm 103:14).  Even when I know better, He doesn’t jump on my every action and seize every opportunity to correct me.

And yet, I still do that with my kids – not always, but often enough that it bothers me.  Unless I’m intentional and very diligent to do the opposite, my tendency to legalism will govern and overshadow everything else.   Unless I decide which behaviors need to be corrected and which can be saved for another day, I’ll spend my every moment correcting my kids.  Ultimately, it comes down to trust:  unless I trust that God’s way of parenting me is a model for me to parent my kids, I will simply engage in a pattern of behavior modification that does nothing to help me reach my children’s hearts.  And it is only in reaching their hearts that real and lasting life change can happen.

Support

Before my oldest son was even born, I knew that I was going to breastfeed him.  To me, there was no other viable option, so I was prepared to begin that process immediately upon his birth.  I remember thinking about how sweet that would be – just moments after birth, having my baby begin nursing as I looked down on him in awed amazement. 

Things, however, didn’t quite turn out like that.  My son needed to spend the first few days of his life in the NICU and his first nursing was postponed for a couple days.  When he finally was able to begin nursing, it didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  In fact, nursing did not go well at all for a very, very long time. 

Perhaps I was a little naïve, but I simply didn’t anticipate that breastfeeding would be so difficult.  I just presumed that such a “natural” function would require no special effort.  For some women, that’s true, but that was not my experience -- not at all. 

Within days of bringing my son home from the hospital, my excitement about nursing quickly turned to complete despair.  Each day brought new challenges and one problem seemed to beget another:  my son couldn’t latch, I became engorged and then had blocked ducts, I was in such pain from pumping and attempting to nurse that every session was marked with extreme pain.   Mommy & baby quickly grew completely frustrated, and trying to figure out how to nurse while frustrated & crying never works. The various contraptions given to us by the lactation consultant at the hospital didn’t help and I soon had no idea what to do.  I felt like a complete failure and seeing no other options, was ready to give up!

My poor husband felt so useless.  In desperation one day, though, he placed a call to a La Leche League.  (How he even knew of that resource or where to find a phone number for a contact is still beyond me).  He brought the phone into the bedroom where I was tearfully struggling through another unsuccessful nursing session.

Over the speakerphone, this woman I didn’t even know began asking me questions about what was happening.  But strangely, when she heard of the difficulties, she didn’t confirm my fear that I’d never succeed.  In fact, she wasn’t despairing at all; she was oddly optimistic.  Before long, I found that her optimism was contagious and I felt my feelings changing.  Talking to her calmed my crazy thoughts; I actually felt my negativity dissipate and I began to feel hopeful.  It was amazing!

When I eventually got off the phone, my son still couldn’t nurse, but I remember thinking I had found the solution.  It wasn’t in a technique, a position, or a device.  It was in having support.  This stranger I didn’t even know made me believe it would be possible to nurse; she understood the challenges I was facing, but had knowledge and experience to share with me and to encourage me.  For me, support was vital.

To this day, I find that to be true in all aspects of parenting. I can spend countless hours pursing various parenting techniques, theories, methodologies, strategies and philosophies, but in the end, motherhood is all about having support.   

There is just something really profound that happens inside me when I hear someone validate what I’m thinking or experiencing.  To know I’m not alone does more for me than even an immediate solution to the problem at hand could do.  I know this is not simply my experience; I’ve talked to countless women who crave support as much as I do. 

Sadly, though, we live in a feministic-driven society that encourages – if not mandates – that motherhood be an independent venture.  But I know God didn’t intend it to be that way.  He wanted young moms to learn from older moms – to bring their babies home to a family that included a mom and grandma and aunts and sisters, all of whom could help the new mom and provide her the necessary support. (Titus 2).

But just because God intended it to be this way doesn’t mean it’s easy.  I find myself having to be extremely intentional to find and maintain the support I need.  I’ve had to seek out mentor moms who are ahead of me who can give me input when I’m facing a new situation.  I’ve had to find other moms who can come alongside me because they are right there in the trenches with me.  And I’ve also had to pursue other moms who are behind me, looking to me to give them encouragement, advice and perspective.  I know they need support as much as I do.

While all of this takes a great deal of time and effort, I know it is worth it.  I can quickly get to the end of myself when I’m relying only on my own knowledge and experience.  Motherhood is far too difficult for me to try to navigate on my own.  I need support.  I can’t do it any other way.