Letting Go...

If you've ever been a parent (or maybe been in the initial stages of love of any type), you probably know what it's like to want to hold or hug something so tightly that somehow you become a part of it. I know if I had squeezed my children as hard as I wanted to at times, they probably wouldn't have survived it. I think most people have experienced this somewhat strange urge - including my children who themselves have often squeezed things they loved to extinction (see Pets or Playthings? ). Maybe that's where the phrase "loved to death" originated. Anyway, I have these moments with each of my children, and I love them.

This week has been difficult for me in many ways, but I think the biggest challenge was that of Levi's MRI. The actual MRI was difficult for him and me, but the most difficult part of it was the worry over whether or not his brain would be found healthy. I have watched in gut-wrenching heartache as my little boy grips his eyes and cries that he can't see. I've watched him try to run half-blind to a trashcan or bowl so that he can vomit from the pain. I've watched him pinch the bridge of his nose so tightly it turns bright red as he cries that, "It hurts, mommy!" I can't do anything to stop his pain. As his episodes have increased in frequency I've argued with doctors and nurses and tried to get him the attention I felt he needed. I've chewed my tongue half raw in my sleep, and my hair is falling out in clumps. I thought I was okay with it, but my body says something is bothering me.

The results came in Friday that he has a cyst in his brain. I was very thankful it wasn't a tumor, as that was our worst fear. However, as I've started to understand what his cyst could mean for him I've begun to let it bother me again. My little guy is exhibiting symptoms of a cyst that is apparently enlarging. This is likely causing his migraines. The cyst will not go away on its own. It will need watched (probably with more MRI's), and probably will eventually need to be removed - if it is in an operable area. The complexities involved in all of this scare me... for him and for all of us. I like to "borrow trouble", and I keep thinking of how this will effect his quality of life and how it will change the rest of ours. Will we keep home schooling? Will he be able to keep being his normal, active self? How will this change our family? These thoughts make me want to hug him tighter and hold him closer than ever before in his short life. He, of course, understands none of that as he squirms to get out of my grasp and back onto his own agenda.

Non-coincidentally (I'm certain) I had some other trials this week that made me realize that when a mother worries too much and tries too hard to control her children's safety or well-being by her own methods, she crushes them. She leaves them incapable (either emotionally or physically) of meeting their own needs. This starts in childhood, but most of the time it continues as a dysfunction long into adult years and effects the lives and happiness of so many more people than this one, worrisome mother can even imagine.

I love my bed. I snuggle into my covers and my cold pillowcase, and I immediately start to pray. This is a largely pavlovian response that started as early as I can remember. Why? Because my parents didn't stay all night to offer me every comfort I could need. I learned to lean on the Comforter of my soul, and that skill has never served me ill. My relationship with my Heavenly Father deepened from childhood and continues to this day, and I look forward every night to that moment when I hit the covers. Bed is not my danger zone. It's my safe zone. It's not my worry zone. It's my worry-free zone.

I say all this to make sense in my own head of the fact that I could "squeeze" (smother) Levi (and the other children), but the fact is, I wouldn't be squeezing him for him. I would be squeezing him for ME. I would squeeze him, because it makes me feel better. The truth is that isn't loving them. It's loving me. It's giving me a sense that somehow if I follow a certain parenting formula that I'll be able to control their level of safety (mental or spiritual or physical), and that makes me feel better about me and about my ability to control their health and safety. It is my responsibility to provide for their well-being, but those things that are outside of my ability to completely control are also outside of my God-given responsibility. If I dip my toe in the pool of fear then I will start to try to control every thing and everyone around me so that they will be safe inside the bubble I've created for them. Not free... but safe. What about when I follow the formula and fail? What if someone gets epilepsy? What if a brain cyst? Who's to blame? The person this is all about... ME. One second I believe a lie, "I'm the best mother in the world." The next second, I believe the opposite of that lie, "I'm the worst mother in the world." This, of course, is another lie but just as effective at making me completely ineffective as a mother.

But why me? "I buy bottled water and organic food? I give them the right milk. I wash their fruit with Fit. I never microwave plastic. I give them plenty of exercise and minimal T.V." The list goes on and on... Those self-righteous ways we have of controlling our destinies by controlling those of our children. Those things that make us feel superior to "worse" parents. Those things we can drop ever-so-nonchalantly in on conversations with other mothers or on FB statuses so that everyone knows we are an amazing parent. But the sense of security I might take in those things comes crashing down when I have children who are ill. What did I do wrong? Could I have somehow prevented this? What is everyone going to think of me? I, me, my...

Like each of my children, Levi is a gift to me and my husband. He is not ours. He is a loaner. Who knows how many people's lives he will impact - no matter how long he is here on this earth? Only God - the Giver of our gift. I will protect him and try to do best for him, but the result is not in my hands. The goal is not to keep him under my thumb forever in order to make me feel loved and secure. It is to prepare him to go out and impact a world that needs love, compassion, and reconciliation with his Maker. If I make an idol out of any of my children (which incidentally is easy to do because they are my "job" and my "love" and most of my "life"), they are taking a wrongful place in my world, and misery will surely ensue. I'm trying to remember Whose they are and to rest in His plan for their days. This will eventually bring the desired result of all my striving - honor - for their Father and for their parents, but it won't be because of the destiny I controlled into being for them. It will be the one that God had planned for them. I hope they will embrace Him above me, because I will fail them. I will not provide perfectly for their needs. I can't. I can trust the One from whom they are on loan, and He knows the plans He has for them... to prosper and not harm.

With the pressure off of me, I am released to give God the glory for their health and well-being and to cry out to Him in times of fear or disappointment. A dear friend with a chronically ill daughter said to me a few days ago that her daughter was a gift from God, and as I watch this mother give "God" to her daughter, it is a far superior gift than giving her primarily herself. Understanding that I will give my children as much of myself as possible, not shrugging off their needs or displacing them, but if I don't begin to meet a smaller percentage as each year passes then they will always be confused about the ability of a person to meet their needs. As we all find - people are entirely disappointing in the true meeting of needs.

This blog is primarily a sorting of thoughts. I have lost children before in a way - not permanently, but when I got divorced, I lost the ability to have my daughters much of the time. I lost half of their special occasions, half of their weekends, half of their vacations for all of their lives. I remember the devastation of that thought, but it didn't hurt half as much as the reality of it does. When they're gone, their safety is completely beyond my control, and I don't even know where they are or how to get to them if I wanted to get to them. It's like part of my heart is missing. No one is immune to such a scenario, as much as we'd like to think we are. One way or the other, the Lord enabled me to release them - not in bitterness or in apathy, but in total trust that they are not my own, and even if they were with me, they could just as easily become hurt in some way as they could with their father. There is a freedom in trusting God for the safety and well-being of my children. Even as I write that I imagine that I'll be judged by some that I am trying to forego some of the responsibility of having children. But it's the only way I won't drive myself crazy with worry. Now... if I can just stay put.