You Are What You Most Commonly Do

Really?! Is the thing that I most commonly do really what defines who I am? If so I am a bottom wiper… or I am a cook, or a professional shouter? I don’t want to be a mom. I don’t want that to become my identity, though I feel myself fading away into the piles of laundry, the countless episodes of toddler correction and discipline, the countless mistakes made that make me lay awake at night and wonder if I have scarred them for life. I don’t want to be a mom because I know someday that won’t be the headline of my life…. maybe that’s the reason.  Someday when they can all wipe their bottoms and get a glass of milk for themselves and drive and move away I will still be a mom but I will again have this thing that I hear exists called, “free time”. I know it exists because there are many well educated people out there who will genuinely suggest that I use this, “free time” to accomplish tasks that I may complain are not being accomplished because of my occupation as mother. I am starting to wonder though if maybe these people are wizards and this “free time” is something that they conjured up out of bat wings and toad warts. “I’m so tired of having a mountain of laundry in my bedroom staring at me as I try to go to sleep.”  I say, “Oh maybe you will just have to use your free time this week to get that laundry out of the way” the wizard replies.  Apparently I missed that day of chemistry where they taught us how to brew a large batch of  “free time” … well actually I failed chemistry so there we go. I knew I was going to need everything I could have learned in that class for every day practical use!!! Well at least I will have something to tell my kids when they don’t want to do their homework. “Hey kid your gonna want to learn this because someday you may have a crazy schedule and you may really want to brew a batch of “free time” and you won’t know how if you don’t work hard at school”. Apparently my kids will be attending Hogwarts.  But really… I can honestly say without any pause or question that this is not a symptom of laziness,  disorganization or procrastination; I really don’t have any spare time. And that’s ok. Right now I should probably just plan on wearing slippers around the house so I don’t continue getting stabbed by dried rice clusters, I should buy some good smelling bathroom spray to carry in the pocket of my robe to use in various stinky situations and name the pile of laundry “Spot” so that people can think I have a cute fluffy dog that drives me crazy every week instead of a abnormal size mountain of textiles living in my bedroom. The only time that pile gets put away is when I remember that if I leave it, spiders will take up residence in it and then I will have not an annoying pile of laundry but a terrifying arachnid sky scraper apartment complex in the corner of my bedroom. Anyways….  maybe the fact that I will not be primarily a mom again someday is not the real reason that I want to say my habits don’t define me.  Actually I really need them to not define me because if they do then I really don’t know how to be happy. I really don’t want to have this responsibility at all; responsible for three human lives, three whom I love so much that if my love was gummy bears it would fill the grand canyon,  to the point that it hurts. I can’t do THAT! It’s WAY too scary. There are way too many variables and danger and just an endless pit of opportunity to fail. I don’t want to be a failure. I want to succeed, and for others to see my success, and pat me on the back as we take off in a celebratory hot air balloon ride  while we toast champagne to my great success in whatever I’m the best at. No failure.. failure bad…. Success good and warm and fuzzy and comfortable. But I want these kids. I don’t want to adopt them out, even though last weekend I did try to convince Phina that her aunt Kimmy was her new mommy. When I really think about it I do want to keep them. I really enjoy them. They are sweet and snuggly and they make me so proud. They sometimes obey me, they are beautiful, they teach me about Jesus and help me see His love more clearly, they love me. Oh these kids are awesome. They are wonderful! But they make me fail. They show how much sin I have in me. More than any other relationship, my relationship with my kids reveals the parts of my heart that are STILL so stinking wicked and I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see how much I fail at things important and things not so important, like having a daily schedule, a “Structure” for my kids.. I’m totally failing at that. Maybe that’s the key here. I am not what I habitually do because when you are a mom you have NO habit. You can’t stay in the comfort zone when you have three toddlers dragging you out of it. If you have a life where you habitually do things in an organized fashion it’s pretty easy to not fail, or at least to avoid seeing your failures. When your not doing something of great value with your life it’s pretty easy to just ignore mistakes and character flaws but when you have great value for your job,  perfection is the standard. I love my kids, and  so I desperately want them to be raised with perfection, but I’m all they’ve got in the mom department and I’m seeing more and more every day that I am nowhere near perfection. So if anyone reading this is a perfect mom will you please adopt my children and raise them because I want the best for them. Oh wait, I’m supposed to be trusting the Lord here aren’t I and oh, um He is the one who chose me to be these awesome kids mama. Hmmm God’s perfect plan for my kids was imperfection? His perfect plan for them was me? Ok honesty warning  right here. The other night after quite a normal day I was crying in my closet saying, no pretty much yelling to God, “you chose the wrong person!”  and it’s not because I’m not doing a good job. It’s because I can’t stand to see my sinful reflection revealed any more by these little tools of sanctification. I guess I should have been more specific when I asked God to make me like Him NO MATTER WHAT the cost. I should have said, “Lord please make me like you through copious amounts of ice cream eating, make my trials consist of brain freezes and difficult walks to the freezer for refills.” That would have been way better. But  I need to stop worrying so much, because God is doing a great job. He is doing a perfect job AND his choice of application of sanctification through being a mom right now isn’t even that bad….at all! He chose an amazing and wonderful application, a form of teaching that will not hurt me or cause me great suffering, or require me to lose any limbs, an avenue that will bless me for the rest of my life, getting to see these people grow into whatever God is making them into and being able to know that I played a part in it. BOY am I getting a great deal here! Sanctification AND  wonderful children!? I think I figured out who I want to be. I DO want to be a mom, because being a mom really means being in the habit of seeing my failures, asking for help with them and becoming more like Jesus. And Jesus is definitely, positively, totally who I want to be like. You are what you habitually do? I’m choosing habitually do whatever Jesus wants me to do……Halelujah!

Prophesy from Daniel Tiger

If you have small children, you likely understand what it is to be grateful for a small singing tiger who entertains your child while you shower for the first time in five days. He doesn’t do anything scary, he is kind, he is introducing very basic Jesus following principals. I have been heard saying multiple times I’m sure , “God bless Daniel Tiger” because I’m thankful for him.  After all, we are all children and so, many of us have not even learned these basic Daniel Tiger lessons  (insert finger pointing at myself). I have received conviction from Daniel Tiger before in regards to sharing, cleaning up after myself and going to bed at a reasonable hour, and sometimes when I feel so mad that I want to roar I take a deep breath and count to four. It’s hard to grow up, especially while fighting against this sin epidemic that has touched myself and everyone around me. One thing that I am asking God to teach me most lately is to be thankful. It’s not really hard for me to be thankful since I have so so much to be thankful for. It is easy to be thankful for those things that the world validates as good like a house, a car, food, clothes, love, friends, a husband, tea, down comforters… the list goes on and on. I am surrounded by mostly good. I could easily fill my heart and mind for days in being thankful and acknowledging these good things that God has given. But the principle of gratitude doesn’t stop at all things perceivably good by me and by the world. It goes a little deeper. To be thankful for the things that God has given that are not so perceivably good is what takes us a little deeper into the heart of Jesus. Is this really possible and is this really something God asks of us? Some things that are not perceivably good are still reasonably easy to be thankful for. I am thankful that I have thousands of diapers to change because it means my three babies are healthy and it’s teaching me to have a servants heart, what a joy. It’s easy for me to be thankful for sleepless nights because it gives me opportunity to pray and worship. It’s easy for me to be thankful while I am cleaning my floor for the thousandth time in one week because I have floors and a house and beautiful babies that dirty them.  But some things that are not perceivably good are really really bad and are so much harder to be thankful for, like illness, unbelieving family members, the loss of a loved one. Here is where I come to my struggle and I think a struggle for many. I don’t want to be thankful  about death and illness and separation even though these are things that God has permitted and are part of His plan for the sanctification of my heart. These things are what the introduction of sin into the world has birthed. What started as a seed in a simple act of disobedience  has now gestated and  is being wretched out in a hideous picture of pain and suffering that we now see in the world. But let me assure you, I’m not confused about a command of gratitude even for these hard things.

1 Thess 5: 16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Rejoice always, give thanks in ALL circumstances;  not only when its easy or vaguely hard or when you feel like it…… always. Always, find a way to say, “though you slay me Lord Jesus I will trust in you and I will worship you because of the choices you have made for my life and the circumstances you have allowed and ordained for the goodness and betterment of my soul.” Every moment of our lives is dripping with God ordained love, unearthly teaching, righteous workmanship and a father whispering, saying, shouting, “come to me! I am the way! I will bring rest unto your soul!”  and how do we say, “yes” to Him? By giving thanks. By trusting that He is good. He is still good when children die. He is still good when pain stays. He is still good when tidal waves come, when bombs are dropped, when death prevails.

I have been thankful that most of the time, for the past two years since I lost someone that I love, that  God has given me wisdom and strength to choose joy in this pain, to thank Him for that death. But sometimes I fail and I am not thankful for it and that ingratitude ushers in a spirit of ingratitude that latches on to things that I used to find easy to be thankful for and things that even the world perceives as good and easy to be thankful for. Ingratitude is sin in every circumstance…every single one.

  Yesterday we drove out to central Oregon for a family vacation. This is a place that for me is dripping with memories of my childhood vacations with my dad. The smell of sage will forever more make me teary I think. At home I’m safe from these good good memories as I encounter the same tastes and smells and scenes for the most part. But whenever we go anywhere but home new memories arise and I have a choice; praise God for the blessings or be ungrateful for not having things the way that I would have chosen, with my dad here and not in heaven. The grumpy set in on the drive as I thought about how wonderful it would be to see my dad with my girls and my son, how much joy they would have brought him and how much it would have brought me to see them hug and snuggle and laugh. If you knew my dad you can imagine how much intense joy two little identical girls would bring him. I can be resentful about not getting to see that joy on his face, not getting to have what would have been a huge amount of help from him just holding them while Reed and I took a nap when they were newborns. He could have been there to help teach my son to fish and watch my girls get married, the list is miles long down a road that only brings pain and anger “God you took that from me” I said in my head. “I’m ungrateful for this path you have chosen, ungrateful for the death of my father.” And my choice to be ungrateful made me ungrateful about pretty much everything  for the next twenty-four hours. It was miserable. But God is so patient and good that He disguised Himself as a little cartoon tiger so that I could hear Him more clearly. Last night as I was holding my son and we watched Daniel Tiger, God spoke to me like I was a little child. Daniel Tiger was playing with his toys and he didn’t want to stop and go to bed because he was having so much fun. Daddy Tiger knew what was best for Daniel, for the sake of Daniels health and happiness he needed to stop, obey and be thankful for all the fun he had and rejoice in the choices his father was making. They sang “That was fun but now it’s done”  and my chest tightened as I thought about how much fun I had with my dad in this life. Jesus sang to me in that moment “That was fun but now it’s done” and as the show finished Jesus said through Daniel Tiger, “But I’ll be back when the day is new and I’ll have more time with your dad for you, and you will have things you will want to talk about, I will too” What a blessing, what a Father. He is gentle to me. I am so thankful. He gives and He takes, blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus. Come quickly new day, come quickly King Jesus.