Invisibility Pt. 4- and Final (phew! :)

THE FATHER'S HEART THROUGH A MOTHER'S EYES

MONDAY-

I had a thought in church today- a few of them really, that pertain to this blog and its actual intent… I found myself thinking about how Christ came to this earth to take on the dailiness of the lives we engage in every 24 hours. My pastor actually used that word, ‘engaged’ as he spoke of Jesus' coming here to dwell among us. I found myself wondering how to relate Jesus’ experience on this Earth to my own. Not in general- but as a mom, since after all, this is written from the heart of a mom, for the hearts of other moms with the goal in mind of seeing our Father...

I wondered, how does Jesus truly understand my challenges AS A MOM? On other fronts, it’s easier for me to see how He can feel my hurts, know my fears, wear my sorrows, delight in my joys…but how does He know what it’s like to raise children? Almost immediately, I laughed at myself remembering his disciples….how many times he had to say the EXACT same things I find myself saying daily…. “Peter, I’m not talking about him, I’m talking about you. Keep your eyes on yourself.” …. “Judas, did you tell a lie? Do you know the consequences that come from lying? It hurts people. And after all, this is your brother, he’s the best friend you’ve got! Don’t you want to think again about the decision you’re about to make?”…. about John and James... “Who gets to be first? Who gets to sit on the right hand? Are you kidding me? Quit shoving each other!" I’ll tell you who’s going to be first now…..your LITTLEST brother…maybe you should have thought of that before shoving him out of your way! Ok, got that down.

So He gets it. But what about the other stuff? If I’m going to SEE HIM daily, I need to know he’s worn these paths before me, so I can ask, “Where are you?” when I’m losing it. And I do lose it. I do. Self admittedly, I lose it. I lock myself in the bathroom from time to time and make a rule: Whoever bangs on the door, follows me and wiggles the door handle or so much as whines outside it ADDS ONE MINUTE to my alone time!

Yesterday, after a HUGE push on my own to get all of them ready for and TO the park before the rains hit, I climbed slides with my huge belly, fit through tunnels I had no right chancing to go down slides I had way to much momentum for…just to ‘play’ with them instead of sitting on the sidelines on the bench as an onlooker…I felt good about it, until time to load BACK UP. I literally walked around the side of the van after plugging all 4 kiddos IN, left the doors closed a moment longer than necessary to cover over the sounds of screaming inside about who had stepped on whose feet, which car seat they’d claimed “FIRST”, who threw their sweatshirt off and onto who’s chair…and before even reaching my door, I said out loud, “OK, HOW am I supposed to SEE YOU right now????”

I was dead serious. S.O.S I told Avy earlier that morning to pray for mommy to have lots of Jesus in her heart if his brothers were going to make it through the day in good form. No matter the plight of readying them all, getting us out of the house was part of that plan…

i.e. The safest place for you all right now is OUT IN PUBLIC, where there is accountability, where there is someone watching, where you will stay alive and I won’t have to lock myself in the bathroom to keep you that way! Brian Buffini often jokes, “ I brought you into this world. I’ll take you out- and make another one that looks just like you…” I was relating.

Now, I mentioned last week was a rough week with my kids, mostly because of my attitude about my life and its meaning. Plus, school hadn’t started up again for my kids and I was feeling the overload of re-training them after coming back from a fun vacation week at ‘Drammy’s’ house as well as leaving totally OPEN-ended hours for my husband to work on building his new business. But, in addition to that, was my own perspective- or lack thereof. I was a bit like a ship- no, an itty bitty boat drifting in deep, rising waters. And it spilled over a bit this week, even with my reminders in place. The truth is, it’s hard to keep a ‘revelation’ fresh. Especially when all the trials kick right back up the minute you get home from church…right? Well, I’ll confess, it took me a few days after posting the blog to get back on track…with my invisibility, that is. With the preciousness of it. With embracing it……and actually finding myself in it.

But I did. And today, it came again, refreshing me with my goal, my purpose in being invisible when I was reminded of the absolute onslaught of orphans expected to surface in Haiti in the coming months, I almost had to leave the building. I could NOT get the images out of my head of my little 2, 3, 5 and 6 year old darlings wandering around with no food, shelter, perhaps wounded, scared, separated. Without a place to be, help, comfort…without me. Looking for me. Wondering where I’d gone…it was ENOUGH to jolt me BACK into absolutely LOVING my invisible role in my life and praying, “GOD, help me cherish the ones I have, and if there’s any way….adopt a few more to become even MORE invisible!!!!!! Please!!!!!!” It was all my heart could take comfort in. My own change, change so radical that I would willingly take on all the comes in the struggles of motherhood. After all, in comparison, what had I to complain about?

TUESDAY-

But what about when there isn’t a ‘Haiti’ to use as a reference point? On those days, even the kitchen sink full to the brim and watching my husband walk out the front door… can pull my perspective back away from the ‘God I love’ and make me question and doubt myself and what on Earth I’m even doing all over again. After all, I’m a college graduate! I’m a grown woman with dreams and aspirations…… It’s the most annoying cycle. One I continually think I should have DOWN by now and should certainly not be returning to daily or even weekly! But I do……Do you? Let that warped perspective wash back over your eyes to twist up your God-given vision? I find my little pity party version results only in frustration, feelings of insignificance and even- on some days, the loneliness that accompanies utter invisibility. Nobody sees me. I do the same thing every day and it gets undone by the next. What am I even here for????

God’s rendition, however, is a bit different. If we take the time to consider it, it can actually lead us right back into the light of perfect identity IN our invisibility.Is that possible? Is that not a contradiction in terms? Perhaps in the world’s eyes it is. But let’s resolve to blink HARD as we finish this topic, just as we agreed to do in the beginning and figure out where, in TRUTH, we may lay hold once and for all, of the significance WITHIN our servitude.

How is that possible, you ask? To be visible in our vaporesqueness? (I get to make up words since I'm writing it...) We may have a whole bushel full of kids at home... We may mother AND work. We may mother and work and do it without a partner in the picture at all…then, enter the world of schooling, recreational sports/arts, etc. perhaps even care for our parents along the way, go to school ourselves and try to spend more time caring for our marriage, pursuing some of our own passions, and, and…

Doesn’t the pressure just add up? Don’t you find yourself thinking, (even if you don’t face all or even many of the aforementioned conditions…sometimes a poopy diaper is enough to do it…) “But, I’m swamped? I’m doing all that I can! I’m absolutely lost in being a Mom! There’s no time for any of the rest of it!

Right? I mean, the kitchen still isn't clean and yet I spent all day working on it. They still don't say 'please' and 'thank you' as often as they should for as many times as I've repeated myself... so clearly I’m now inaudible as well as invisible. They still take juice in the living room, don't lift the lid and forget to wash their hands. They still get new toys out before putting the first away, kick their shoes off in any direction and at any velocity they so choose at any given moment and cannot for all the innocence they can muster to squeeze out their huge, blue, eyelash-batting eyeballs, remember where the dirty laundry basket has been – in the same exact place since their birth, OR how to flush a toilet or close the refrigerator door.

Let's face it. I spend all day, every day, doing the exact same thing, wearing in turn, one after the other, my entire collection of hats which turn me from chef, to maid, chauffer, nurse, nanny, lifeguard, referee, teacher, teddy bear, news anchor, janitor, banker, cheerleader, counselor, life coach- plus 10 others you could list just as easily- and still, they cannot comprehend the complexity of the word, "NO," coming out of my face.

I feel it coming on. The verse I can’t define for once and all time….and suddenly I’m again doing everything for everybody all the time and apparently for very little reason…… This one is seriously out to get me! Does getting the dishes all done by midnight constitute success?

Success?

After all…I’m right to question this in the world’s eyes. I DO stuff all day that no one can really label. I work all day long and actually accomplish very little that is actually recognizable to the human eye. I spend countless hours repeating phrases that have worn grooves in my own brain (one day I actually corrected a man in front of me at the counter in a gas station, blurting out, "MAY I have 10$ on pump 3, PLEASE…" -And all for the same payoff I could have gotten at home, too. Blank stare. ) Sorry…I’m raising kids all day…I just……ahem. Nothing.

I repeat these cycles and routines and phrases endlessly, and yet they have seemingly become merely cues for my children to flip the switch in their brains from 'on' to 'OFF'.

Oh, her mouth is moving: 'OFF'.
Ok, her mouth stopped moving, "ON."
Oh wait, noise is coming out of her face, "BACK TO OFF."
Ok, the noise has stopped coming out of her face....”ASSUME ‘ON’ MODE…”you get the point.

WEDNESDAY-

It’s clear to me that if I’m going to survive this thing called ‘Motherhood’, and certainly if I’m going to be victorious in it, perspective is huge! And it’s not just in mothering…It’s everywhere. The bible tells me so…. “…One thing I do, forgetting that which is behind, and stretching forward to the things which lie ahead, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:13) Here, we see that Paul has a future-perspective. He’s not focused on the past, not even so much the here and now, but on that which is ahead…..

Another evidence of how key perspective is in our ENTIRE GOAL of SEEING JESUS? How about Phil 4:8…Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, DWELL ON THESE THINGS." - Again, perspective. Paul consciously chooses not to dwell on the evil of the world, of his own heart, of injuries committed against him, or shortcomings he himself has recognized as his own. He chooses instead a perspective of hope IN the madness and still to actively cherish God’s values… AS HE GOES about his calling…

That is why we never give up. "Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever ."(2 Corinthians 4:16-18).


So, what I am once again realizing?

Keeping perspective- GODLY perspective in my mind as my main filter is critical for me as a person, a woman, and ESPECIALLY as a mom. I can’t tell you the many times, purely out the lack of such perspective, I’ve encountered myself at the end of the day in the bathroom mirror, only to recognize myself as an identity crisis in wait…


I do everything for everybody all the time and I don't actually even know why. And they don't either…!!!


THURSDAY-

It sneaks in when I see wrinkles I swear were NOT there yesterday… when I’m just about to crawl in bed and the monitor rings with the sweet sounds of someone crying, coughing, puking……and my stability of the moment shatters like a house of cards. After all, there is not choice in my actions at these moments. My children need me. But my attitude? Huge opportunity to choose…EXACTLY in those moments. It’s an amazing contradiction, the life of a Mommy: I am in the midst of BEING all these people wearing the hat list and then, magically, I am no one at all.

I am everywhere, but invisible. Necessary and disposable all at once. And for some reason, my flesh continues to find that defeating instead of precious!!! Can you imagine why? The spirit and flesh at WAR!!!!!!!!! IN me!

You see, as for my flesh- the problem in this equation is that my becoming everyone in practice has left me noone in particular. I'm a mosaic of heroes for the most part, and you are, too- but if you've looked closely at a mosaic before, you know that if you simply let your eyes lose focus for one second and the artistry becomes a purplish-blur. a mass of vagueness and there have been many a morning and even more often, an evening where by midnight I am asking, “Who am I? What is it exactly that I do? And in fact, didn't I once have a title? Of any kind? Now, I’m a chameleon- add the color ‘see-through’. After all, I can be anyone belonging to any hat in the snap of a finger depending on the need of the moment.

I can even become my father, it turns out, against the most severe efforts not to and suddenly in my flesh, I am answering my children in my head:

"I'm hungry......what can I haaaavvvveeee?"

I'll tell you what you can have, you can have a knuckle sandwich, that's what you can have.

"He hit me! Mom, he hit me!"

And you're coming to me because.......you'd like me to hit you, too? " )

Did I just think that out loud? Say that out loud? The war in me rages on. How well I know Romans 7!!!!!!!

See- Here’s the thing about perspective. You always have one…you just don’t always have the right one. I teach my boys routinely to see roses on a thorn bush instead of thorns amidst the roses. I teach it. I just don’t always do it.

I can read the Word, and on some days, be doing the RIGHT thing, but hear the wrong message.
It’s all about my perspective. I may be dawdling in God’s Word, but I’m most certainly not dealing in His Worth.

Once again, I can hear the words, “I become all things to all men so that by all means that I may save a few,” and think, TELL ME ABOUT IT! I KNOW, RIGHT? #@*&%$$#!!! And to my own detriment, (and my children’s) miss the entire point. That's the result of the fleshly vantage point...

FRIDAY-

IN the Spirit, however, it’s actually quite lovely, in fact, to read this verse FROM the perspective of a Mommy….I do everything for everybody all the time…- just as long as the ending has us grounded back in the Beginning. For what reason? For what purpose? IF it's a worthy one, I'm made purposeFUL, NOT purposeless!!!!

After all, it is a truth we know well. We DO do everything for everyone else, but if we never finish the sentence, or we finish it with our own words....we end with a pretty mean little pity party. I do everything all the time for no good reason......poor me.....

SO- let’s READ FURTHER….and see WHY... why we do this. What it's worth. Without that part in place, we're doomed to the wrong vista.

"I have become all things to all men, so that by all means I may save a few....and I do all for the sake of the Gospel..."

The Gospel.
That good news.
That saving Grace.
That all-redeeming reason I’m called a ‘Mommy’.

These are my children. MY FEW. The people I love the most, over whom God gave me the chance to watch, with whom God gave me the right to spend my days and for whom God gave ME the desire to pour out my heart and life…

Now then, should I be doing something else?
With my days?
My degree?
My life, I mean?
Should I be finding some greater significance?

Could I?

If I simply follow the Word through to the ultimate reason WHY Paul is willing to pour himself out, to be all things to all people......surely, I find for myself the very same motivation. The very same compulsion. The very same PURPOSE.

How very ironic, don't you think? Our utter invisibility IS our absolute significance. Is our purpose. And it IS A CHALLENGING purpose still, but embracing it and stewarding it to His great pride and favor, I am finally made confident that what I do matters greatly. Who I am matters greatly. What I’ve been called to matters greatly. I matter greatly...

After all, He asked this role, of ME.

SATURDAY-

Let’s recap, and then leave this one settled as our foundation to move on:

Refer back: 1 Corinthians 9:22…

"I have become all things for all the men (in my household, at any given moment to any extent or degree)……so that I may by all means SAVE a few (THESE few little precious hearts that God entrusted to me). And I do all for the sake of the Gospel...so that I may become a fellow participant in it."

JESUS' FELLOW PARTICIPANT! Good enough for you? Good enough for me.

Besides, did you see that? We came full circle! If we can just stop, daily, and wrap our heads around that cycle, we might get an infusion of His perspective. His thoughts, so much higher than our own... Then we would see ourselves more clearly as we go about our calling, and our children, HIS children, would be seen for what they truly are. After all, IN the Spirit, they are both our ‘all men’- for whom we do all these things……AND our ‘to save a few’ for whom, let’s just face it, we’d hand over our very lives without ever thinking it through. They are our everything. Our what we do with our lives turned His, and our forever why we do it.

They are, in a huge percentage, what our lives are for, and in tending to them, every chance we have, we are living out our meaning, being who God asked us to be, doing what He asked us to do.

I don't know about you, but when I do that, I wonder: Could I have a greater significance?

It's my choice really, how I answer that. My choice whose answer I listen to.

Some days I see a bit of Oprah, see up and coming women of the world and say, "How on Earth did I get myself soooo burdened???!!!!! I could be off in New York City working for a publishing house...or writing books....living a single gal lifestyle!" Other days, I can’t help but be overcome by the Holy Spirit and humbly wonder, "How in Heaven did I get so blessed? What have I ever done to deserve all this? All these kisses. All this love. All this preciousness infused into my simple little life, making it the most complex adventure I could have ever dreamt up..." It’s all about through whose eyes I’m looking. I could be blind, and if God’s heart was driving me, I could still see more clearly this simple truth than when my flesh and eyesight are supposedly working up to par…

At war within me remains the battle: I do everything for everyone all the time and apparently for very little reason...
OR, I do all these things for everyone in my life, at any time and any price, all in order that I might SAVE MY few precious little ones.

On that note: I challenge myself and you-

Is there anything else we should be doing?

SUNDAY-

The key, is perspective. God's perspective. It's going to be the key every single day. It's going to be my choice every single day. Even when I'm tired. When the dishes are in the sink. The floor is not vacuumed or even swept. When the laundry is piling high in the corners of every closet.....When every time I hear my name, it's not even my NAME anymore...because they don’t even KNOW my real name!!! Even then, God says to me, IF I WILL LISTEN, I will see as He does that I was His choice for this job. He chose to believe that I had what it was going to take, and if I didn't, He was willing to give it to me. He loved me fully and robustly right into this full-time, non-stop, un-ending opportunity to... love Him back.

And after His redemptive work on the cross for me, that’s about as flattering as it gets.

“Tend my sheep,” He said.
“Take care of what is most precious to me.”
“Be made whole in me, in SEEING ME and LIVING FOR ME by living OUT the example I set for you.”
"Be a participant with me..."

“Tend my sheep…”

Even if it takes me my whole life long to get this, I am determined. Are you?
Happily, gratefully, even humbly, let’s tend.