"Do you understand?", he pleads for maybe the tenth time in thirteen years. "The most loving thing you can do for me, besides making love when I'm well, is to wear a mini-skirt around the house at night so I can look at you. It makes me so happy to look at you."
This desire, expressed on his birthday, the day after surgery.
After a day with four children who fussed, complained, argued, fought each other. To the very. last. minute. before they fell asleep. With the loss of routine, they fell apart, the impulsive one leading the pack.
What am I doing wrong with these kids? This inquiry filled my head and my prayers all day.
Even had I not fallen asleep with exhaustion while nursing Beth, easing the pain of varicose veins that ached all day and begged to be rested......him? He fell asleep after reading Narnia stories to the boys.
When will it get easier with the kids, he wonders.
And I don't know the answer. I don't know how to stretch myself or chop myself to care for all these people...their needs often conflicting with each other.
How can I ever be enough? When one wins, another loses.
Beth wakes three times in the night from dreams--her sister once, complaining that bumble bees invaded her bed. When do children dream, roll over, and just go back to sleep? With the boys I don't remember so many dream-related wake ups.
This marriage? It's strong, lived with grace, and he will survive, like every other man whose wife is caring for small children. God gives these intense years and they are gifts.
Still, he needs me to listen and plan and act.
Black bear sightings increase here, I read this week. Just last week, a sighting in the next township over. They search for bird feeders and pet food bowls and exposed trash May through mid-July.
Most interesting, I read that the parents, they kick the cubs out at one year old, who then must find their own territories.
And human children? We love, teach, nurture for twenty years, and then some. And God knows his own design. He knows a mother's challenges.
I sit in the dark living room...insomnia at 2 AM.
I talk with my Lord and he comforts me, agreeing that yes, I am not enough.
But I am, He reminds. Pray your way through...for me, the great I AM?
I do not parent like a bear. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
John 15:4
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Isaiah 42:16
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
2 comments:
I am also thankful that HE is such a loving parent and will carry us through these years.
Thinking of you ... all of you.
Post a Comment