Good and Perfect: Living Day by Day

We have this drippy sink in our kitchen, and it makes me mad. MAD. And when I say mad I mean like mad hatter kind of mad. It seriously makes me crazy. I was recently looking for a text I had sent Josh with some info I needed and as I was scrolling through I found four or five texts I sent that said “this sink is going to make me crazy!” When I pointed that out to him, he gently said “uhh I think maybe there’s a lesson in that for you.”

Because WHO cares? It’s just a sink, and it can and will be fixed in the near future. It’s not even that big of a deal, but in a world where it feels like there is very little that I can control, it is the thing recently that is kind of putting me over the edge. Most days I feel like nothing is in my control so when I can’t even do a simple thing like shut water off without a drip sound I sometimes want to lose it.

I consider myself to be one who is very self-aware. I don’t have a lot of discipline and I’m not so great at “fixing” my issues, but I’m awesome at knowing what my issues are. And most of the time I think I even can dig a little deeper and know where they stem from. In spite of my so-called self-awareness, the need for control was not something I realized was a problem until I had kids and all of a sudden I couldn’t control anything.

SLEEP, CHILD. The book says if I do such-and-such then you will sleep. So sleep.

Behave right now because the people I am chatting with are people that I want to impress and it’s hard to give off the vibe of good parent who disciplines well when you are acting like such a fool in this store right now. Now is not the time to be a child, I need you to be an adult!

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING? Do not lick the grocery store cart. No. No no no no no.

I like to meal plan five to ten days in advance and pick out everyone’s clothes for the whole week on Saturday. I like order, I like to know what to expect. I like to have control.

Being a parent has exposed all sorts of issues deep within me about my need for things to be orderly and to make sense and to work as they are supposed to. And more importantly (because these desires are not bad in and of themselves), it has made me aware of how difficult it is for me to respond well when things aren’t going as I hope/want/need them to. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the world of parenting.

That’s the world of parenting your own children, who are yours from day one, who you bring home from the hospital, whose stories you know and whose personality quirks you learn. And even though they are their own individuals, you learn to embrace their uniqueness and hopefully you figure out what works for them and what doesn’t.

But the things that are challenging about parenting your own children are even harder when you bring in a hyper 6 year-old, or a needy 4.5 year-old who has not been with you from the beginning. You might know what has been told to you by a caseworker, but then the child might tell you something that throws you for a loop. You know a very very very miniscule little piece of their lives up until they come into your home. You don’t know the ins and outs of what makes them unique or frustrated or excited. You don’t really know how to discern when their tears are genuine sadness or when they are manipulation. You don’t even know how long you will be responsible for managing and parenting and loving them. Sometimes you are given warning about things and sometimes you are not. Sometimes things are planned that you prepare for and then 15 minutes beforehand they get cancelled.

Foster parenting is not for the control freak, which makes it unfortunate that I’m turning out to be more of one of those than I first thought.

And I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. It can be so very hard to live day to day not knowing what mood the child will wake up in, how he or she might respond to correction, if you’ll get information you want, what song or store or random tree on the road might trigger a memory in them that changes their whole affect for the day.

I’ve had moments where I wanted to quit, where I wanted to say this roller coaster and these emotions and these unknowns are too hard for me. I give up. But there is juxtaposition in my soul where the ins and outs can be so difficult and make me feel like throwing in the towel, but yet the big picture, the cause, the plight of orphans and vulnerable children, is becoming a greater passion by the day. The thing about praying for things is that God starts working and your heart starts changing. And even though my mind often screams I CANNOT THINK MORE HARD THOUGHTS TODAY, my soul cries out “God, give me a bleeding heart for the orphan so that I can be one that will stand in the gap even when it’s hard.”

So even with an often tired soul, God is doing a work in my heart, and our family is learning and growing and being stretched. We are looking at the world through a new lens. I’m learning what it means to give and to love sacrificially, to serve when I don’t have a lot of control and I might not get everything I need or want in return, to lose some of the things I want to experience with my own children for the sake of a child that has a whole lot less than they do.

Many years ago I was going through a trial where I was just begging God to intervene. I would pray and then open Scripture and beg for a word that would be the exact answer that I needed. I spent quite some time in Matthew 6 reading about how God does not want us to worry. I didn’t get that word I was searching for that would tell me exactly how everything was going to work out, but one afternoon I was particularly struck by verses 26 and 27,

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

I heard some birds chirping right outside of the window where I was sitting as I read that and those verses took on new life. I didn’t have to know how that situation was going to turn out, because I could trust that God was in control. I recognize that the verse is about worry about not about control, but in my world those two things are so closely tied together and connected to a lack of trust. I worry because I don’t trust God. I try to control things because I don’t trust that they will be okay if I’m not the one managing them. I search for peace by holding on while God is gently whispering that my peace can be found when I choose to let go.

The birds are being fed and I am much more valuable than they. Ever since then, a chirping bird has been my sweet reminder from the Lord that I am loved and provided for. And it’s because of that love that I can let go of my need for control, I can let go of my worry about the unknowns, and I can release my fears about what is ahead. I am free to live day to day. I am free to live abundantly even when I have no idea what tomorrow will hold. I can continue on even when it’s hard. I can love without worry that it will end up hurting. I can love without worry about when it will end up hurting.

I am tired and I don't have much control over a lot of the things going on in my world, but I am learning to let go, and I am clinging to a strength that is greater than my own. I am learning to live one day at a time and finding freedom in my dependence.