It seems only fair to explain why I am comfortable with claiming publicly that I’m not really a ‘kid’ person. I’ve said this for years, and it always evokes odd looks and maybe some awkward giggles. Everybody knows exactly what I mean. But are we supposed to say that, aloud?! There is a general feeling of shame or ‘mom guilt’ in admitting (even to ourselves) that children tend to be truly challenging for the majority of their existence.
There’s also I think a generally held belief that Christians must view and portray parenthood as sweet, heavenly joy in order to correctly follow Christ. After all, He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.” He also said, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Clearly He loved children and valued their superior ability to believe the truth quickly and easily.
And please don’t mistake me. I love children, too. I love everything lovable about them. Hope, love, joy, innocence, energy, the literal approach to good and evil and people and truth. There is no adult that understands the natural world or basic principles of living better or more easily than the average uncorrupted child. This is fun. The delight of child-raising, if you will.
What I’m talking about, and what I intend this whole project to serve as a vehicle to help process, is the trickier bits. For me at least, the vast majority of the time I spend with my children is not what I would call fun. Maybe this makes me pathetic and terrible, I don’t know. Another uncomfortable thing I tend to say too often is, “if you like kids, you probably don’t have enough of them.” With this many kids in our home, throwing in the close ages and the myriad delays and traumas they have experienced and will continue to work through, there is constantly someone in trouble. Someone is in need of correcting. Someone is in need of help with something that they could probably do themselves. Someone is in need of….well, anything. Someone is ALWAYS in need.
This is simply and overwhelmingly disheartening. And I think it’s healthy to admit that. I don’t like the helplessness of children, ignorance, inattention, foolishness, or heartlessness. (Maybe you have all sweet juveniles, but each and every one of my six boys tend to often hurt their siblings accidentally or on purpose and really not give any cares at all, maybe even is proud of it!) I don’t like willfulness, disobedience, selfishness, inconsideration, or general slovenliness. I don’t like disrespect, arrogance, clumsiness, drama, whining, self-pity, stealing, destructiveness, dishonesty and untrustworthiness, cowardliness, lack of self-control, etc., etc. The unavoidable fact is that parents are expected to not only bear all of these odious qualities in our children, but to improve each and every one of these behaviors whenever and however they appear, through both example and overt correction. We are asked to embrace and assist with every power of our being, other beings who do their regular best to make complete fools out of themselves and us. This is sometimes (often), to put it bluntly, a nearly intolerable task.
See, I don’t really think Paul was a kid person, either. After all, he did say, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” The whole chapter is about qualities that children really do NOT naturally have, at all, and then he mentions how much he considers childish things to be in his past. He wasn’t called to this path, the one where we must bear with childish things 24/7 and inhale them with every waking breath. But I do think he would have had a lot of understanding for those of us who are.
This calling is the best thing I have ever done, or ever hope to do. Especially the fostering and adopting part. It’s the closest we can possibly get to the heart of God: loving a soul that is unlovable for so many reasons, before it can ever be expected to love us back. Loving that soul through shadows and valleys and dips and lows and every other appealing word we can come up with to describe hell. Loving them in spite of themselves and their sometimes expressly stated utter lack of love for us. Loving them one. day. at a time. in spite of never knowing for sure what the next day will hold or how long we will get to love them in person. THIS. This is love. The depth and glory of it rends my very soul. Shame it’s so gosh dang hard.
It’s ok to be discouraged! It’s ok to feel like it’s all too much sometimes, to stumble and tremble. The only thing we have to do is get back up one more time than we fall. And that’s why Jesus’ mercies are new every morning. Your kids, and mine, are His first and only ours on loan. He loves them even more than we do, and He is the source from which we can find more love and grace than we could ever come up with in our own strength.
Here in the pages of this site, I wish to present an unvarnished view of the hardest thing I think anyone can ever do. It’s just a version of taking up one’s cross daily. Part of why I don’t offer up my full identity is because I don’t have any pride at all in this; in fact I believe that I fail miserably at the task most if not all days. He must increase, but I must decrease. I don’t expect it to be a particularly popular message, and much of what I think, feel, and write isn’t very mainstream.
But if any of my life, any of my struggle, any of my roller coaster in all its harsh realities can be encouraging to you, that will make it worth it to me. You are not alone. When you feel defeated, just remember that you are one of so many unsung heroes. Facing the darkness each day and staring it down, with the most vulnerable of our race firmly tucked behind you. Your ancestors watch you with silent pride and your descendants will rise up and call you blessed. You call down with each small act of love the greatest power in the universe, the power that conquered death and took captivity captive. You have limitless courage because you have limitless access to the heart of the Father. You are storming the gates of hell and defeating the principalities with each young heart and small hand bravely held tight.
Even on the days you don’t really like them.