Big Kids, Big Problems

Back in the days when all my children went to bed by 8 pm, and I thought it was the hardest point in my life, my dad would continually tell me, "little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems."  We had some pretty big problems when we had little kids, so the saying isn't perfect, but it is pretty accurate.

One of my daily struggles today is watching my kids choose things that I would never choose for them.  I have prayed for years for God to prepare me for the days of their testing, when I would have to sit back and watch them struggle with walking out their faith.  And here we are, watching, praying, seeking counsel, praying and trusting God with the story.  I hope someday I will be able to write about this story in detail, but it is personal and I respect that.  I think one of the hardest mom moments I have had is when my child looked at me and said something along the lines of, "but mom, you have always told us to walk with those who are on the margins and have no one else.  You taught us not to take the easy way."  I guess I did.

I had a very nice little story all written out in my head.  I had big hopes and dreams.  I had my eye out for just the right opportunities and situations.  I tried to manipulate a few times (which as you can imagine went well, NOT!)  So now I sit and pray.  I try very hard, VERY HARD, to keep my mouth shut and listen.  I try to see what God is up to in this story.  What I can see is that I have raised a very loyal, hard working, caring, beautiful person who isn't looking out for number one.  They have taken the hard road, and I am trusting that will bring growth and glory.  I am trying to remember that my perspective and God's perspective are sometimes widely divided, and I am the one who needs to change my focus.  I am trying to remember that my grown children are no longer my babies in Christ, they are my brothers and sisters in Christ and I need to treat them like that.  I am not their savior.  I am not their Holy Spirit.  If I try to be those things I will lose my relationship with them.  They have free will, just like I do.  They have to walk with the Spirit, just like I do.  I have to trust that God is the author of their story and that he is always faithful.  I have to let go of my story and embrace what God is up to as he teaches my children about life in Christ.

Life in Christ is perfect, except that we are humans with free will, so we tend to botch it.  God knows this and in some mysterious way takes that all into account and makes beautiful stories out of crazy plot lines.  I know my kids will wander.  I know they will make poor choices.  I know they are sinners and in need of crazy grace.  I hope that I am growing in extending that grace.  I hope that I am growing in extending that grace to other people's children as well.  I hope I am growing in extending that grace to myself.  I have to remind myself often of my crazy grace story.  I try to be honest with my kids about my crazy grace story, and yes they do use it against me from time to time.  They pull the, "you weren't a Christian when dad started dating you."  Nope, I wasn't, and wasn't that a glorious part of our story?  Wisdom comes along slowly sometimes, but I have no regrets about being honest with them about where I have come from.  They need to know that we all fail.  We all learn something from our failures, sometimes we learn badly and it happens again.  That is what this life is all about, living, failing, repenting, forgiving, praying, loving, suffering, and being thankful for it all.  Even thankful for the hard chapters.  Thankful in the suffering is hard stuff.  I have learned that joy comes through suffering, so I will not give up when things look tough.  I know my kids, and several of them also don't give up when things are tough.  A couple of them do, and that is where I have to step up, encourage, pray, seek others to help, and do my best to keep them moving.

On a very side note, this summer has given me some crazy analogies.  Breaking steers to lead has a lot of similarity to raising teenagers.  Working with kids with special needs has  a lot of similarity to both breaking steers to lead and parenting teenagers.  I am learning how little control I have over other living things.  I am learning to be creative in my motivational techniques.  I am learning to see progress in ways that I would have scoffed at fifteen years ago.  I am probably learning to be gracious and long suffering.  I am definitely learning to pray without ceasing.  I am also learning humility, because there are more times that I am at a total loss, than times I think I have the right answer.

God is at work in the Schumaker family.  It may look sketchy from time to time, and it is, but I see a positive direction over all.  The problems we face now have harder consequences, and longer lasting effects, but they also offer greater rewards.  Maybe this is a defense of why we look the way we do from the outside perspective, or maybe this is just an honest post about living the Christian life with a lot of people to manage.  I have learned to listen carefully to the voice that speak into my life.  I am not going to make anyone happy, that's not my job.  I am just doing my best to be faithful in what I am called to do, and I so enjoy finding those people out there who are doing the same.  There was a great line I read in a book on living with people with chronic degenerative disease (of which I will be doing someday I am sure) that said something like this, "I am glad I found the person to stagger through life with."  That's me, staggering away, fully aware that I am not walking a straight line all of the time and happy to know that there are folks out there who will give me a hand, because they are staggering too.