A Front Row Seat

Sometimes life gets really full of uncomfortable and painful stuff. Then I remember that conversation with my dad when I was about 21. When I said, “is life always hard, or does it ever get easier?” Oh, my naivete! He just looked at me and smirked. A smirk that said, “I don’t want to tell you the truth right now.” And I was crushed. Because I so badly wanted to believe it would get easier, even though I knew deep down that it wouldn’t. Not that life isn’t full of joys, but many times, the sorrows sneak up and try to steal away the good things.

You know how there can just be weeks at a time, or sometimes much longer, when you feel you’re treading water and there is absolutely no boat in sight? You know it’s there, coming sometime, but you’re really tired of swimming. Of spinning your wheels. Not getting anywhere.
Sometimes life just is that way. Even if we’d much prefer it to be easier. I am one who likes easier. I have a difficult time stepping out in faith. I’m working on it.

What baffles me sometimes is that it’s taken me 33 years to get to where I am right now. I’ve got so far to go, but I can’t believe some of the things I’m just truly grasping now. Life and learning is such a long process. I get impatient with me, wanting more from myself than I’m ready for.

I want our kids to be strong enough to weather the storms of life as they pump their arms, trying to stay afloat. I want to instill things in them that make them able to stand up and move on when life gets hard. I don’t want them to back down when things aren’t easy, choosing a smoother road for the sake of avoiding difficult things. I don’t want them to be so overwhelmed that they can’t see the lighthouse or the boat that floats before them, offering help and direction.

That sure is a tricky thing to begin to instill. So many times, I want to protect them, remove the difficult things, kiss it and make it better. Learning to decipher when to do that and when not to do that will always be hard for me. I know that because my heart tries to explode out of my chest at even the smallest of wrongs against my boys. I want to scoop them up and remove them, take it away and get back to a semi-utopia at home. But there are very few times that is the right thing to do.

I suppose it’s just as anything else. We need to take one moment at a time and make the very best decision in how to treat painful things as they arise. As parents, Ryan and I need to step back every once and awhile and allow things to happen, because they always will. And then, just as we do now, we’ll talk about that pain, validate it and be examples of the ability to move on and focus on the goodness of life. I hope.

I hope and pray I never get too impatient with the process in Miles and Asher. It’s long. It’s slow. It’s a refining fire. We are pushed into the flames and oh, how it hurts. But we come out smoother and shinier than we once were, sluffing off a lot of stuff that was getting in the way of our beauty. I know I need to allow that process in my boys. They will grow at their own pace, maturing at their own pace.

I’m so thankful, despite the risk of hurting with my boys, that I am the mom chosen for them. Because I have a front row seat in watching their change and growth, seeing them come out all shiny and smooth. And that’s a beautiful thing.