Paradigms: Sometimes They Won't Fit the Mold

Remember your first child? You know, the one who fell asleep in the shopping cart at Target during the Christmas rush? The one who jumped in bed before you got to "two?" The one who kissed you without your having to pretend cry? The one whose bibs went unstained under the threat of mashed yams? Remember him???

Just when you accepted either a) your chromosomal superiority or b) your (look out...) remarkable parenting skills, your second child springs from the womb yelling "no" and laughing while you try to snuggle his limp-bodied, kicking self into some semblance of the Willow Tree carving on the dresser.

"Oh, I'm sorry," you tell him, "I guess you didn't know that breaking all the glass votive holders was dangerous. That yelling 'Cookie!' the entire time we ate out (though you were, in fact, holding a cookie) was irritating. That shrieking 'Down! Down!' as I carried you from preschool every day was embarrassing. It should look like this: you kneeling beside my heart-shaped, featureless face while I tenderly stroke your wooden cheek. Yes, that's it! Isn't that what you meant to do?"

Then your second child locks eyes with you and smiles very dimply and peachy while reaching one toe into the street just a touch, just a little weensy bit. "Charlie!" you say, "No sir! Go to the naughty spot!" You wave your arms and squinch your eyebrows so the neighbors see you are not permissive or negligent or incompetent, though you yourself aren't really sure.

You scrutinize your care, your attentiveness, your goodness while he sits in time-out. You look at his tiny bean-of-a-self enduring this formality with the remorse of an artichoke. What am I doing wrong?

He grabs his wiggly feet and sings, "He ha da Whole worl in His han!" and "biddy biddy beebees, in his han!" until you realize the answer is nothing. What is flawed is the statue itself, because as moving as it seems, it isn't as delightful, as marvelous, as perfect as this stubborn, extraordinary soul.

God don't let me change him!

On Trial

I'm distracted by this. Without giving creepy Internet weirdos my exact address, let's just say it was nearby. Grief veils the village faces-- rescue workers, neighbors, parsonage, mothers-- all are affected. My friends and I mope around with sore lips from repeatedly kissing the warm cheeks of our babies.

Some things just won't fit in the mini-van. No one has answers. When fear and confusion spew from the town spicket, the church flips to it's default setting of "defense attorney," puking out arguments for God's infallibility. "Some important blessing will come out of this!" "All things work for good in those who fear Him!" "He has a plan!" "His ways are not our ways!" I hate the sound of it, us defending God as if he needs a publicist to clean up after Him. Yet here I am standing in my driveway fumbling through stock answers with terrified, doubtful mommies while we run our fingers through downy heads of precious, irreplaceable hair.

Yesterday I was thinking. (It happens.) We are stuck in the reality of peanut butter sandwiches, and cat litter, and coffee shops-- things requiring no faith at all to believe in. Now suddenly we have to answer, void of reason, void of warm-tingles, void of evidence: Do we believe God?

The bitter pill to swallow is that God's fallibility is not on trial. Only our faith is.

How will you answer?

Inflatable Death

It bobs around on our neighbor's lawn with a gigantic axe and frightens my innocent children (and the dog). Behind it is an array of severed heads hanging from tree limbs and impaled on wooden posts, all draped in faux spider webs. It is irritatingly festive if you are a psychopathic serial killer.

Which I am not.

I have to sneak up behind the stupid thing and unplug the air pump before Toby will walk by. I encourage him to be brave while explaining how it is not a real person, just a blown-up Halloween decoration. But it doesn't seem fair. Reality is very elastic to him and I toss truth and illusion around in an ironically confusing jumble. This ugly, scary thing he can see is not real. The invisible, silent, elusive God is.

"God is bigger than those scary things," I say as I whisk he and Charlie past the skeletal hand reaching forth from its bloody grave. He looks at the grave skeptically and I know I failed the writer's highest calling: show, don't tell.

At night we say our prayers as he crawls into bed. "Where is God?" he says unphilosophically, as if asking for the nearest bathroom. "God is everywhere," I offer because I can't think of an unlousy answer. He sits up quickly and looks at his mattress in confusion. "Am I squishing him?" Excellent question.

No dear, mommy is.

I've been a Christian so long that I barf out illogical religious rhetoric when I don't know what to say. Which is a lot. Toby is bright for three and I can see doubt on his face. Maybe it is my own reflection. Inside, my heart longs for God-- the God who satisfies, the God I used to trust. But an inflatable Death looms in front of my eyes and I can't reach the plug.

My boys are precious and I want them to know a powerful, real Savior.

God, start with me.

A Disturbance in the Force

Since I have been writing for 36 straight hours on the new Cross Timbers Women's blog I needed a refreshingly masculine post title. So, thanks to my neighbor and only male blog pal, Todd Mead, I sort of plagiarized his. (Todd, I hope this shameless link to your site will indicate my gratitude.)

I referenced my "disturbance in the force" in a previous post about my struggle to believe God is good in a world that really, really, really isn't.

The day my first son was born, a new something was also born in me. I don't know if every mother feels the way I did, or if I am especially neurotic. I just know that along with a deep, aching love, was an oppressive fear of losing it.

I don't think any mother can properly put into words the way she feels about her children. It is a consuming, furious, intoxicating river plunging straight through her heart. Mine terrified me. My very soul left my body and transposed into a tiny baby boy, naked and vulnerable. I was paralyzed by the thought of anything hurting him.

Almost two years later, my worst nightmare became a reality for a friend of mine. There are things that I wish I didn't even know could happen. Things that take a long time to heal and things for which heaven itself may be the only balm. The pain of seeing a family suffer in the most cruel way was too much for me to bear. I no longer believed God was good or even that He was at all. I sunk my claws deep into the idol of my child and turned my arrogant back on Him.

I've gone through the motions for a couple of years because frankly, I know them well and it is easier than admitting my anger. I made myself comfortable in this place for a long time.

Now I have reached a paradox. It seems the one thing I am hiding from is the one thing I know my boys need more than safety, more than happiness, more than life.

More than me.

I want them to know God. My God. My God that is especially fond of me. Finding my way back takes more trust, more grace, and more faith than I ever wanted to give. Before, my faith was unwittingly based on an expectation of security. Now who knows? Nothing is certain. I have no more answers than I had before. I guess I'm just finally OK with that.

So God, here I am.

Dear Blog: I Miss You

I know it looks like I have abandoned my blog since I have not written anything in a week, but I can assure you that my heart is here if not my time. My life is looping around me, swirling and turning, and I feel like I can only catch my breath in brief moments and just enough to keep from turning a deep shade of blue.

It won't be long and I will not be sharing a computer. I cannot wait to write my posts during normal, wakeful hours instead of squeezing them in at midnight or five in the morning when Greg's computer is available. Until then, I will try to quell the sense of guilt and longing I feel every time I think of Tales From the Running Mama whimpering in cyberspace like a neglected puppy.

Since I don't have long I will have to save most of my thoughts for another day (soon I hope). I just want to bring up an interesting topic that seems to be jumping out at me from every turned corner. Its a little book called The Shack and though I have not finished it, I think it might be one of the most important works I have ever stayed up too late devouring.

This book covers the one topic that conceals my God in a terrifying shroud of painful mystery. In fact, after an experience two years ago with a dear friend, I might upgrade mystery to bitterness. How can God be present in a world full of horrible suffering, sin, and hate? If this question could settle in my mind, even on a tiny thread of truth, it would give me peace in my deepest places, the ones I push back during play group, or while I am vacuuming the floor, but that crawl into view in the quiet of night and haunt me like angry monsters.

My faith so far has been shaky at times, waffling at times, forgotten at times, and taken various shifts and turns down my long road. However, until recently, I never doubted God's goodness, power, or love for me. I suppose it is inevitable for any Christian to grapple through murk and mire and either drown in it or emerge closer to Him than before. Right now God still seems elusive to me: in one moment a refuge, in another, the source of my indignant scorn.

During my first few weeks on this blog I noticed a trend that bothered me: His noticeable absence in any of my writing. I cover my children like beautiful, cherub-like idols, the very embodiment of love that feels safe to me. But bringing Him up feels like cheapening the outpourings of my heart with feigned contrivances. How I got here, a girl who would have given her very life for Him a few years back and longed for heaven like water in a desert, I'll never fully understand. I guess it is easier to live with abandon when you have nothing to lose.

I don't want to sound hopeless. He is chasing me, this I am sure. I am walking the road, though limping and questioning and I believe that He is strong enough to tackle my doubt when I am not. I still love Him enough to stay the course and trust Him enough to be honest.

If I have learned anything about Him in nearly twenty years of relationship, I think that will be enough to pull me through.