Wednesday, January 14, 2009

My lonely cave

Ever notice that the times you most need the support of your friends is also the times you least want to be around anybody? Why is that?? We would be much better off being with people, the ones who know us and care for us regardless of how sad, cranky, unlovable we're feeling. For me, the bigger the failure I feel I am, the less I want to be around my friends. Seems like I've been here before, and it sure is old and annoying to me... must be to them too, right? "Oh crap! There's Melanie dragging her luggage behind that's WAAYYYY over the weight limit!"

"I lift up my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1

Thank you Lord, for being my help, the lifter of my head. When I want to hide away in my lonely cave, You bring Your love to me through friends.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Lessons I've learned about God (from my son)

As an adult, and someone who has been following Christ for many years, I never imagined that some of the most profound lessons I would learn would be from my son. He has the questions that lots of kids have while trying to figure out this whole God-Jesus-Bible thing, but he also asks some that I think even most adults (OK, me) grapple with if they were completely honest. Like “How do we know God is really real?”, or “How do we know the Bible is really true?”, or “How do we know that Jesus is really God’s son?” For me, however, a few of my biggest lessons have not been the result of his questioning, but the result of his actions.
To say that I’ve struggled with my self-worth would be a bit of an understatement. One of the hardest ideas for me to accept was that God really, honestly loved me. I always thought that if God were choosing His baseball team, I would be that last kid picked. It didn’t matter how many times I heard the whole God-loves-you thing, I just couldn’t completely claim that for myself. I would paste on my “I’m fine” smile, and carry on with my life, all the while feeling like a fraud that was going to be found out at any moment, and all the world would see the doubts that riddled my ‘walk’ with God. Because if people really knew me, the real me hidden deep down inside where no one was allowed, they would see what damaged goods I really was, and how God couldn’t possibly really be pleased with me.
My son seems to have inherited some of that negativism. For years (really, years) we have seen him struggle with his identity and worth in the family. He has rather explosive emotional outbursts that he has extreme difficulty controlling, and we all just hang on until he can get himself together again. And he knows, deep down, that this isn’t how other kids act, and he feels that there is something wrong with him. In the midst of his meltdowns, he usually will start screaming that no one loves him and everyone hates him and he wishes he were part of another family,etc. I always tell him that it’s not true, we do love him, but it tends to fall on deaf ears when he’s caught up in the moment.
One particularly rough morning, as my son was sitting under the dinning table, going on and on about how no one really cares or loves him- we might say we do, but inside we really don’t, he says- it hits me like a ton of bricks. This is exactly what I have been doing for so long. All these years I have been burying my head in my arms, insisting God (and everyone else) didn’t really love me, all the while desperately hoping for someone to prove me wrong. It was a shocking, horrible revelation to say the least, and how anyone could stand to be around me while I struggled through one of my “fits” is beyond me. God used the very graphic example of my son to get through my thick heart and show me He was there all the time, whispering His love for me and waiting for my storm to pass so I could finally hear Him.
Then there was this past Christmas. My son had gone with me to our local Christian book store to pick up a few gifts. He had been mentioning for a few weeks that he wanted to get a new Bible, a “grown-up” one, so we took a few extra minutes to browse their selection. On the sale table he found a navy blue, leather bound thin-line Bible (with the words of Christ in red, of course) that he felt was just the thing. In my mind, I knew it would make a wonderful gift from his great-grandmother, and I decided to return the next day to get it for him, which I did. I even had them imprint his name in silver on the front. The Bible wasn’t mentioned again till the day before Christmas, when all of a sudden my son realized he hadn’t actually told anyone that he wanted it. He moped the whole rest of the day, and all of Christmas Eve, thinking he wasn’t going to get that Bible that he had so wanted. He even got a bit cranky about it. And all the while I knew that he was getting the very thing he was so out of sorts about.
How many times have I done this to God? I think I know what I need, what would make me happy, and then when that “thing” doesn’t work out how I thought it should, when I thought it should, I get all bent out of shape. God knows what He has in store for me, what will be best for me, much better than anything I could have planned out for myself. Jeremiah 29:11 says “”For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”"
I can’t say that I’m really looking forward to the next lesson I may learn from my son. They tend to hit below the belt, catch me off guard, knock the wind out of me. But when God’s truths finally sinks in, those are the lessons that stay, take root and change me to God’s glory. And when I let Him take the lead in my life, while the path may seem to wind through places I would rather not travel through, I am assured that He knows the way. When I allow His truths to sink in and penetrate this hard heart of mine, I can trust in this hope and future that HE has planned for me.