Jan. 29, 2015
Right now I am sitting in my closet. Sitting in my closet and just at a loss....
What do you do when your kids say the meanest things? What do you do when the words being spit out with such a force of hate shock your heart but fall on ears like a scratched record? I just can't right now. If I'm being real and honest, I just can't even deal with this tonight. The cycle that is on repeat has beat me tonight and I give up!
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Feb. 1, 2015
I started to write the above blog a few nights ago, alone, in my closet at 10:11pm. I had already been in a full on three hour conversation aka loud non communicative speaking, with our son. I was in no mood for it that night. His way of thinking he knows everything about everything, everything which includes thinking he knows already what I'm going to say and knows that he knows what he is saying is wrong and knows he should not be disrespectful but apparently we have caused this. We have "made" him act this way. And of course when I say, "no one can make you react this way"... Don't worry because he knows that too!
Genius child I had on my hands the other night!
Oh it was ugly and I was over it! UGH!!!!
Sitting there in my closet I could not even think. I sat there, having locked myself in, and just embraced the quietness and the little space of no movement. Just still. I did not think, I did not move, I just breathed!
I was so thankful that Jon was home that night...He tucked the littles in bed and gave them loves and assured them all was going to be alright. He spoke with the biggins and prayed with them and got them all off to bed. Thankful that tonight, we were a united front. Don't get me wrong, we are always a team and united in our efforts as parents but many nights Jon is working and parenting via iPhone. That night we could literally tag team! Thank you God! His turn was up and I was in the corner of the ring (our closet) trying to catch my breath!
I was in there about five minutes and then heard a knock. I was not ready to go back out; I did not want to be a parent at this moment. I wanted to just be in my closet of quiet and stillness.
It was Jon at the door. He asked to come in and I was so thankful he was not telling me it was my turn to be responsible.
Jon came in and sat beside me and said, "I told our son to wait. I told him to come in our room and wait until we were ready to talk to him."
We just did not know what to do. We are in this same cycle of events with this one child and we have got to figure out how to get him and us out of this ticking time bomb of a pattern.
Good day- good day- moody child- explosion- regret/forgiveness- good day- good day- moody child- explosion- regret/forgiveness- good day- good day.... You get the pattern?
Not even a full minute had gone by and our son started talking... I mean just a talkin'!
We reminded him in a neutral tone; "stay in our room and wait and we will be out there to talk to you."
He went on with "why, what for, it is late" and "that would be boring, this is stupid, if you want to talk then just talk, why do I have to wait" and so on and so on.
I don't know what clicked inside of me but I said to Jon; I am not going to answer him and you should not either. We had explained to him what he needed to do. We gave him clear direction and he just needs to wait. This is not going to be in his timing or on his demand. We are going to wait like we did when our kids were babies and we were teaching them to go to sleep at nap time. Jon and I would change them, feed them, sometimes change them again, rock them and sing, then lay them in their crib and told them it was time to sleep.
I don't know about your kids but ours did not ever go right down for a nap! As soon as we would think we had them asleep in our arms and as soon as their heads hit that mattress they would pop up so fast and cry and scream!
We did whatever method was popular at the time. The one where you lay them back down, tell the child it was time to sleep then walk out and close the door. They would cry and you would let them cry (as long as they were dry and fed) upwards of 10 min.
The whole point was to teach the child that you the parent were putting them to bed and they needed to learn to go to sleep when you told them.... and that just because they cried did not mean they were getting their way.
All of this came to my mind in an instant and I thought, our son needs to learn that just because he is demanding us to do what he is wanting does not mean we needed to oblige. He has to learn just like a baby does, that just because you cry you are not always going to get your way.
And so it was that night.
He kept talking and saying it was stupid to have to wait, and so on. Jon and I had decided if our son could just stay quiet for one solid minute we would come out of the closet and do our best to fix the crazy issue we were having.
So there he was; there we were. The battle line was drawn; the door was shut.
Our son's talking went from why, how, and when, to apology and remorse for what he had done. When he found that even with the apology, we didn't respond, there came a long sigh. A long, long sigh. And then...it happened.
"Okay, I am just going to sit out here and wait." our son said.
He did just that for a moment longer before we opened the door, and invited him in, to where he could find forgiveness.
A well known definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, and yet expect different results.
The repeated cycle our son goes through mirrors the same cycle that all of us go through in our lives.
We want different results the next time, but we don't really want to or even like to change. We are stuck. We can't get out. It's not that we don't want the kind of change necessary to bail us out of our ever torrent predicament, it's just that it is not humanly possible. The kind of change we need, the very change our son needs, can only come from the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said he was sending someone better, and he wasn't kidding.
We need the Holy Spirit through our lives to be the change we cannot be. We must die to ourselves in order for the Holy Spirit to live His will through us.
Talking about the Holy Spirit can be uncomfortable because it seems so unfamiliar. To be honest, unfortunately, most of us this day and age haven't seen the power of the Holy Spirit.
Our China boys grew up Buddhism with influence of Taoism.
Lao Tzu wrote in one passage of the Tao Ta Ching, the holy book of Tao, "that it is upon the emptiness of a room, where its usefulness is found, and that the spokes of a wheel only find their usefulness around the emptiness of the hub."
Oh that we would empty ourselves,only to be filled with the love and the forgiveness and the glory of our Father's Holy Spirit.
Father, may we stop trying, start dying, and have faith that only through you, are all things made new.
"Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man's power ends."- George Mueller
And so we continue on, ever changing, living this beautifully awkward life we've been given.
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