Love is Funny

Love is a funny thing.  We long for it from the moment we are born.  At first, our longing is a matter of survival.  Or so it seems.  However, according to the Early Childhood Department at the University of Washington, babies are born with a desire to feel “wanted, warm, and safe from harm”.  Well, duh!?!  Isn’t that what we all want??? 

So much of what we do is really based in this longing that each of us is born with.  We want to be wanted…what was that Cheap Trick song? 

                I want you to want me. 

                I need you to need me.

                 I’d love you to love me. 

                I’m begging you to beg me. 

                                Courtesy of LyricsFreak.com

And, so it goes.  We go through life looking for someone to love us.  First, our parents.  And hopefully our siblings.  And then some friends.  And maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Someday a spouse.  We just want them to love us.  But what happens when they don’t?  What happens to us when we aren’t shown love?  Where does that leave us?

I’ve had several opportunities this week to ponder these questions as I’ve watched people react in various situations, watch their interactions, reflected on my own interactions with others, and I’ve wondered.  What makes some people find ways to cope and move forward and continue seeking love, and what causes some people to become withdrawn and bitter and choose instead to manipulate and attack others, still deep-down desiring to be loved, but choosing to spoil the possibility before it can be taken away from them?

If you know me well, you probably know that I didn’t have a Norman Rockwell childhood.  Oh, it appeared that way to outsiders, but that was by design.  What went on when no outsiders were around was unpleasant at best, and downright awful at times.  I have spent much of my adult life wondering what caused things to be the way that they were…what thing happened to individuals to cause them to react the way that they did.  To make the choices they made.  The truth is, it doesn’t truly matter what it is that happened at some point in history because we all have a choice to make.  We can choose to let our past color our future.  And if our past is good, that is a good thing.  Or, we can choose a new future.  We can choose to be different.  To blaze a new trail.  To do better.  Or at least the best we can.

I chose the latter…I chose to do the best I could.  I chose to love with all of me, hoping for that love to be returned, and I have been blessed by love.  I have a wonderful husband who loves me unconditionally.  Sometimes he’s not so nice.  But sometimes neither am I.  At the end of the day, though, we still love each other fiercely.  And that love has blessed us with these five pieces of our hearts that walk around living and breathing and being…loving our children and being loved by them in return is truly life’s greatest gift.   I may not have had a perfect model of love in my home as a child, but I was blessed with the knowledge that I DID have a perfect model of love in my God, and for that I will forever be grateful.

So, on to my crazy observations of those around me…I had the strangest, almost out-of-body experience this weekend when I met my father’s girlfriend.  It still seems crazy weird to even say those three words together.   But she was here.  In my house.  I met her.  I talked to her.  I hugged her.  I cried with her.  She is real, and so is this thing that is happening that is almost surreal to me.  My father has found love.  The kind of love we all long for.  The kind of love where when you see someone, your face lights up.  The kind of love where the second you leave each other, you start to miss one another.  The kind of love that causes you to seek out ways to take care of the other person because they truly are an extension of you.  And it is awesome.  My father had one of those challenging childhoods.  He reacted by becoming a caretaker.  He took care and he took care and he took care until I worried it would kill him.  He long ago gave up truly being loved and accepted that it wasn’t for him.  And then, God opened a door so wide for him that he would have had to run the other direction not to walk through it, and so here he is.  He is in love.  He is happy.   He is wanted, warm, and safe from harm.  And that safe from harm part is the one that chokes me up.  Because I have worried.   Oh, have I worried about him.  I have wanted him to be well, to be happy, to be content…but he hasn’t been. 

A few months ago, though, I saw a change in my dad.  I saw him light up when he talked about her.  I saw him want to tell me about her, and about her life and her home and what she said.  I saw peace, because he found the one who will love him.  So, even though this love will take him far from us as he makes a move to be closer to her, I feel such joy that I could do nothing more than thank her when I met her.  Thank her for loving my dad, for giving him his safe place, his place to be wanted.  Because when you have that yourself, you want nothing less than that for those you love.  I have prayed for that for him.  She truly was an answer to a prayer and so to God, I say, thank you, thank you, thank you because THIS is a very good thing.

University of Washington Department of Early Childhood, The first relationship: parent-infant attachment is key to child’s development,  http://www.washington.edu/earlychildhood/articles/the-first-relationship-parent-infant-attachment-is-key-to-child2019s-development

My Thanksgiving Resolution

As Thanksgiving Day winds down and I find myself a little bit comatose due to eating too much and sleeping too little for the past couple of days, I can’t help but think of all I have to be thankful for.  Sometimes I just have to stop and wonder how I can ever find anything at all to grumble about!?!?  I mean, seriously!?!?  How can someone with the amazing bounty of blessings I have been given ever take any of that for granted and instead choose to complain about some petty irritation I choose to focus on?

As a mom, I spend the majority of my energy focused on doing what I can to help my children grow into responsible, caring, compassionate young adults who go out into the world with a heart for serving others, for giving to others in return for the amazing blessings they have been given, and for experiencing this life God gave them to its fullest.  I have been blessed to watch them begin to learn to do just that, and it brings me joy I cannot begin to describe, but it doesn’t happen without a cost.

As I spent time this week preparing for Thanksgiving, and time today finalizing preparations and saying prayers of gratitude for all our family has been blessed with.  I kept thinking about how sad I am that my Megan isn’t here with us this year.  I kept feeling bad that our children would be spending their first Thanksgiving ever not all together, and feeling sorry for myself that I wouldn’t have them all under the same roof on this day of saying thank you.  And then, I realized how ridiculous that is and I straightened myself out right then and there!

You see, Megan is doing just what I prayed for her to be able to do…she is out there experiencing this life God has given her to its fullest.  She has taken the gifts God blessed her with and she has worked to develop them and grow them and use them to take her places she never would have gone otherwise.  She has used her gifts of caring and compassion and she has developed friendships with amazing kids from all over the world.  In fact, as I write this, she is celebrating Thanksgiving in Greenwich, CT with a friend she has made at college and I couldn’t be more thankful that she and Emma are such good friends or that Emma’s family has so warmly welcomed Megan to join their family to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I couldn’t be more thankful that my daughter is out there, living life, experiencing life, and sharing God’s love with people she never would have met if she hadn’t been so willing to trust God to lead her where He would have her go.

I also see these same wonderful qualities in my Kate.  She has grown into an amazing young woman who has embraced every challenge placed in front of her and has worked hard (harder than I can even believe sometimes) to grow stronger and develop her skills and abilities to the fullest so she can experience this life.  She is strong and confident and willing to put herself out there.  She is learning WHO she is and that she can stand firm in that, no matter what choices those around her make.  She feels outrage at social injustices and feels driven to try to make things better for others.  I have no doubt that she, too, will seek God’s will for her life and will follow the path He lays for her, wherever that may take her.

And Jake.  My Jake who has been so quiet and reserved for so long and has begun to find his voice.  My Jake who is becoming strong and confident, knowing who he is, and who God designed him to be.  I have loved watching him grow and mature and seeing him step out of his comfort zone and begin to follow his own dreams and seek out the path God has in store for him, as well.  My Jake who understands so much and sees so much and who has a seemingly unending compassion for others and who has a quiet determination to stand firm in who he is, regardless of who everyone else around him chooses to be.  There is no part of me that isn’t certain that Jake is going to do amazing things, wherever his blessings take him in life.

My Nick and Emma are still so young, but I have begun to see these qualities in them, too.  I have begun to see them grow and mature and be more certain of what they believe and who they are.  I see them making quality choices in friends and finding groups and activities to join that match their talents, and learning how to be quality teammates who support the group as a whole and work for the good of all, regardless of what might be best for them personally and I am so grateful for this. 

 

As I stop to think about the amazing blessings I have been given as a result of the great gift of being a mother to these wonderful children, and the amazing life I have been blessed to share with my husband, who is also my friend (and who could ask for a better blessing than that…spending your life with your best friend?  With someone you can talk to about anything and who is your greatest cheerleader and supporter?  With someone who believes in you, even when you don’t believe in you?), I can’t imagine that there could ever be ANYTHING to complain about! 

 

And so, I am about to begin a NEW tradition for me…rather than making New Year’s resolutions, I am going to make just ONE Thanksgiving resolution.  I resolve to focus my energy and attention on noticing all I have to be thankful for, not just today and not just a year from now when Thanksgiving rolls around again, but EVERY day that I am blessed to wake up and begin a new day.  And I don’t mean a Facebook post every day in November that finds something new to say thank you for.  I mean a REAL choice to focus on having a thankful heart.  I mean waking up every day and making time to set my mind on all I have been blessed with, in hopes that by choosing to pay attention to that, I can choose to let the petty complaints of day-to-day life go, to know that sometimes these blessings of mine will also bring me heartache as their desire to embrace God’s plan for their life may take them far from home for a season or more.  Maybe instead I can choose to see this life through the eyes I hope my children see it through…something to be grateful for and to experience fully.  It’s worth a try, right? :)

What’s Your Plan?

This is a question I ask as a teacher every day.  I ask my preschoolers to tell me what they are planning to do, how they plan to do it, what they will need in order to do it, and then to let me know if they change their plan so we can talk through their NEW plan.  Why do I do this, you ask?  Because, in my opinion, this is a skill that will be invaluable to them in their lives.  In order to find joy in life, they will need to have a goal and the ability to think through the process to determine what they will need to accomplish that goal.  They will also need to have the ability to make a new plan when things don’t work out the way they thought they would.  And they need to know that is okay.  In fact, they need to know that is more than okay!  They need to know that we all try and fail sometimes.  And when we do, we need to pick ourselves up and make a new plan.

I observed several things this week that made me wonder if this is a skill we could all use some work on.  As we go through life as a parent, do we have a plan?  What do we envision as the goal?  What are our hopes, our dreams, for our children?  And I don’t mean what college we hope they get into, what degree we hope they attain, what profession we hope they enter.  Those should not be our dreams…those dreams are for them.  Our hopes and dreams for our children should focus on WHO they will be.  What qualities do we hope they develop, what values, what traits?  Do we have a plan for that?  Do we know what our goal is?  Do we know what we need to do to get there?  Because if we don’t, then we can’t ever hope to reach that goal.

The good news is we don’t have to come up with the plan all by ourselves.  God laid it all out so clearly for us.  We know WHO God wants us to be, who God wants our children to be.  We read in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”  There it is.  That is what we want.  We want our children to love (and be loved), to feel joy (and bring joy to others), to feel peace (and be peaceful), to be tolerant (and tolerable), to show kindness (and be shown kindness in return), to do good to others, to be faithful (to their God and to those around them), to be gentle, and to show self-control.  What more is there?  Those qualities are the hallmarks of a full life, and I can’t imagine anything better for my children.  So, how do we get there?  We embody those qualities in our own lives.  We show our children love (and show them how we love others).  We bring joy to others and we find joy in our lives.  Every day.  Because it’s there, I promise!   We live our lives peacefully, not searching for conflict and dissent, but seeking peace for ourselves and those around us.  We exhibit tolerance.  For those who are not like us, for those who are, for strangers, and for those we love.  We choose NOT to judge others.  We are kind.  Just kind.  Every day.  We do good…not just when we feel like it, but ALL the time.  We seek ways to be GOOD to others.  We are faithful followers of God, faithful wives to our husbands, husbands to our wives (and I mean so much more than fidelity…I mean are we FAITHFUL???  Do we put our faith in them?), faithful moms and dads (do we BELIEVE in our children’s potential?  Not their potential to perform, but their potential to BE?), faithful friends, faithful stewards of the gifts we have been given???  We are gentle, always.  And we show self-control.  When we do these things, we will have everything we need to make our plan work right there in our hands.

You see, I believe that parenting isn’t a reactive sport.  We can’t go through our days simply reacting to what is thrown at us.  We can’t make decisions based on the circumstances of the moment.  When we do, our destination is clouded.  It would be like doing a dot-to-dot with no numbers.  The random decisions connect, but the picture at the end looks nothing like we had hoped.  We must be INTENTIONAL in our decisions as parents.  We must keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak, so we know where we are headed and we must make decisions that move us along that path.  Doing that in the moment is daunting.  It can even be overwhelming.  But that is where the plan comes into play.  If we HAVE a plan, we can make our decisions, make our choices, we can PARENT according to that plan, and that takes the burden of having to make those day-to-day decisions away.  We can relax, and just do it.

And sometimes, we will fail.  Sometimes we will get it wrong.  We will mess it up, we will make a bad choice, use words we shouldn’t have used.  But it will be okay.  Because we will pick ourselves up, and we will find a new way to reach our goal.  And we will remember that the choices we make as we parent, the things we say to our kids matter, but they matter so much less than WHO we are.  Whatever else we try to do as parents, our children will be influenced a million times more by who they see us being in our day-to-day lives.  If we are the mean girls, they will be the mean girls.  If we are the bullies, they will be the bullies.  If we are negative and critical, they will be negative and critical.  So the first and most important part of our plan must be to BE who we hope our children will become.  If we get that part right, then the rest is all gravy.  And that is a very, very good thing.

Just Listen

I had one of “those” moments this week…you know, the kind that make you feel OLD!?!?!?  I generally subscribe to the theory that you are truly only as old as you think you are, and as a general rule the creaks and aches of an aging body don’t make me feel old.  I often forget how old I actually am and have to stop and think what my number is. :)  Every once in awhile, though, something happens to remind me that the hands of time just keep on going while I’m not paying attention.

I had the great pleasure of spending time with friends this week.  Often my crazy schedule doesn’t leave room for such luxuries, but this week, despite the looming deadlines for a multitude of projects, I chose to MAKE time, and that is a good thing.  One of my favorite things is sitting with a group of amazing, inspiring women just discussing LIFE and sharing the moments that make us laugh. This activity has a way of filling me up so I can go forth and live, and I cherish those moments.  The discussion, however, is not what struck me most this week, though.  It was my friends’ children that stopped me in my tracks.

A few of my friends still enjoy the blessing of having small children in their homes, and so we had the wonderful company of three- to four-year-olds while we visited.  There is nothing quite as joyful as the sweet grins on little ones' faces and it was surely a blessing to have them there.  The moment that stopped time for me was when they sat at the table with scissors and paper, crayons and glue, and talked.  They talked and they talked.  They giggled, they were serious, and they talked.  As we all noticed them, their moms commented that they really need to get them together more because then they could talk to each other since neither of them ever stop talking.  I wanted to cry.  Because I remember those days.  I remember listening until my ears hurt, and then listening some more.  I remember pudgy little three-year-old hands drawing me pictures and cutting out hearts and talking, talking, talking…I flashed back to conversations I remembered and to so many long forgotten.  I also flashed back to that feeling of hardly having the energy to listen for another moment, and I wanted more than anything to go back to that me and say, “Listen.  Just listen. Because you will blink and that little boy will be a teenager who will talk, but only if you wait, and wait, and wait…  That little girl will be a teenager who will talk, but only when she is home, and her schedule will be so full that you will long for her to be there to talk.  So just listen and hang on their words because someday you will want to remember every one.”  

Our children need us for so many things when they are little.  They need to be fed, bathed, and dressed.  They need us to make things better with a perfectly placed band-aid and to read a bedtime story before we tuck them in.  They need to be hugged and kissed and loved and taken to Sunday School to build their faith.  As they grow, some of those needs change.  They still need to be fed (in fact, I would argue that there is no greater need for a teenage boy :)) and hugged and kissed and loved and taken to Sunday School, but they start putting their own band-aids on and they start reading their own books.  They slowly become more and more independent and clearly that is what we want.  But one thing that never changes is their need to be listened to.  Truly, isn't that something we long for, even as adults, more than anything?  Someone to listen to us?  To hear us?  To show us that we matter enough to be heard?  

Our children are growing up in a world that can be daunting and scary.  They are dealing with many of the things we dealt with as children, but they are also dealing with so much more.  When I was a child, bullying meant that some boy pushed another one down on the playground.  Today, my children deal with texts, Facebook posts, tweets, blog posts, and more.  When I was a child, being ignored by a friend meant they didn't call you on the home telephone to talk or to invite you somewhere.  Today, it means being excluded from group messages, left out of activities in a public way as every moment of every event is plastered all over social media via posts and pictures that you aren't a part of.  Kids today have so many new ways to be mean and so much of what our children face is overwhelming and they simply cannot process it on their own.  So, they need us more than ever to just listen.  To listen, to understand, to hear, to care. 

And so it goes.  We pass through seasons in our life and it is always so much clearer from the other side just how amazing our life was.  Life with five children under ten was full and exhausting and made my ears hurt, but it was very, very good.  And now, life with five tweens and teens is busy and crazy and exhausting, but it is still very, very good.  I will make it my goal to remember that every day.  I won’t always succeed, but when I struggle, I will think of those little voices and I will smile.  And I will keep on listening.