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Courage

Today is day 6 of the stupid attachment challenge.   This challenge was a new kind of fresh hell   taught me a lot.  About myself.   Yay, I didn’t really want to know that….

I made it to day two before I decided enough is enough.  I didn’t articulate that, not even to myself.   But when little mister walked upstairs covered in pee (I so wish that I was exaggerating.   I am not.  COVERED) something inside me broke a little.  I did not touch the kid even once that day.   I decided quietly somewhere deep inside me that love was not enough and part of me gave up.  You see I had a plan.  And the plan was not working….

I kept telling myself I would start tomorrow.   Tomorrow would be better.   But we were engaged and he.would.not.stop.pushing.   I had started this thing but now all I wanted to do was let go.  I was good with going through the motions.  I can put a smile on my face and baby, I can work the plan but this was just too much.

Have you ever been roller skating?   I remember when I learned and finally felt like I was getting really good at it.  I sailed around the rink like I had wings.   I was amazing.  Until I wasn’t.   I remember finding myself waded up in the middle of the floor, wondering how I got there.
Yep.  You get where I am going with this.  Once again, here I was totally wadded up.  I was sailing with this whole therapeutic parenting thing.  Until I wasn’t.

Music moves me in an incredible way.   God designed me this way and He often sends songs my way that speak His words to me.  In the midst of the mess and the chaos he sent me this:

Brave.   I liked it.  It was catchy.  I headed to church last evening blaring it over and over.   I entered worship slightly apathetic, fearing that if I gave any more I would burst into tears.   My pastor got up and spoke about not turning around.  Don't stop.  Don't go back.  Don't give up.  Have Courage.  Then someone else got up and spoke and my heart heard:  Do we have the courage to still walk in faith even when it all goes wrong?   Do I?  What if the plan stops working?   What if it never worked in the first place?

I am reminded of the missionary in the Congo.   While she was healing after being brutally raped God spoke to her: "Can you thank me for this experience even if I never tell you why?"   Can I trust Him no matter what?   Can I thank Him?  Can I still let the words fall out...words of love, words of healing?   Can I still tell the truth?

So I stumbled a bit.   I am headed back the right direction.   This morning I had a wonderfully refreshing conversation with this woman.   I decided that I needed a little more help and I am learning to ask for it.  Right now I am a little more brave.  My little guy is still screaming and the plan may not be working...but right now, this moment I have courage.

So, here’s the truth…

Yesterday was day 3 of the challenge.  Today is day 4.   Want to know how many hugs I got in yesterday?   Exactly one.each.   The only thing we did together was eat.  The littles spent all their time pushing, trying to find the edge.  Ladies and gentlemen, I am exhausted and by gosh, I think they’ve found it.
Part of me hesitates being this honest, this out there.  But you know what?   We are never healed by hiding.   It is not the struggle that defines you it’s what you do in response to the struggle.  On one hand you could say I am not successfully completing this challenge.  You could look at all the junk that is coming to the surface and shake your head.  You could.   I won’t.   I will see the junk as an invitation to clean the wounds a bit more…I will not beat myself up for natural, human responses, instead I will move into more grace for myself.   I will celebrate what is right and I will remedy what is wrong.
There is still some healing to be done in me so that I can move more completely in love.  Life ebbs and flows and I am more capable at one moment then another.   I will take a deep breath and just be still in the moment that is here, however it looks.  I will know that He is God and He is taking me further than I thought I would go but I will also know this: what He has begun in me, He will complete.

Attachment Challenge…Day One Down

Here is a link to the challenge in case you didn’t see yesterday’s post….

day one down.    I am sad to say this but it is much easier to hug and nurture the one and not the other.  Sigh.   The other pushes me and pushes me and pushes me.   Oh and the screaming.  Did I mention that?   Sigh.  I know in my heart I need to do this but I am ever so human.
The hugs part were easy (well, in comparison).  The doing something that they choose….not.so.easy.   Especially since the other will intentionally choose something that will irk me.   The poor guy does not know what to do with all of his hurt and anger so he projects it on me.  Sigh.  (again)   Yesterday was busy and not the best for starting this challenge because I had a day planned to myself to recharge. In the end we didn’t get everything in but still I feel goodish about it.
Today I am home all day (like usual…) and aside from a beach outing our time is not already signed for.    I have no excuse but to focus on the challenge.  (Unless we talk about the fact that the other is covered in urine again.   In the shower we go….)

Oooh..this is gonna sting a bit…

So someone suggested we do challenges specifically to help us meet the needs of our trauma kiddos.  Someone else suggested this:
(drum roll please)
Christine Moer’s Attachment Challenge
So some brave souls are doing it.   Start today, start tomorrow.  Just start and blog about it.   Let us know we are not alone.   Let us know that you are human too.   Let us know just exactly how you rocked this!
Today is day one for me.   I will check in tomorrow and let you know how it goes.  I will be focusing on the challenge through next Tuesday.  

Also if you are no already reading Christine’s blog…do it.  Watch her videos too.   Really, it will help. 

***Important note: please don’t exclude yourself from the children just because you haven’t adopted/fostered/worked with trauma/whatever.   This is a good challenge to do with any children.   Now go rock it mamma!

Are you working through the attachment challenge?   Link it up here baby.   I can just feel the mojo...

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What Trouble are Giants…

The screaming continues.   Some days I am really okay with it.  Today, I am pretty sick of it.  Today I want to throw therapeutic parenting out the window and I.want.to…..SCREAM back.  I want to forget all I know about trauma and love and God and I want to think only about me.   The truth is sometimes I want to lose heart.

I whisked the non screaming children outside to breathe the air and the grass.   A moment to step back and reflect.  Remember.   A moment to reset.  Intention.   We sat in a circle each of us for a moment of peace and affirmation.   We listened to Rich Mullins remind us that it really is okay to be small.   It is okay to feel powerless and just because you feel the fear it doesn’t mean you have to embrace it.  We spoke about value and love and all that God feels for us.   I’ll admit it, today was a little harder than others but I was able to acknowledge the fear and then step away into hope and back to love.

We all face giants from time to time.   We are all small sometimes.   We cower….so weak and the problem loams so big.   Load your slingshot friend, take courage and don’t give up now….God’s got this.

I'm gonna tell you a story
That you've probably heard
And at the risk of being redundant
I'm gonna tell you something
That may not thrill you
But it could not hurt
Well it comes out of the sacred
Writing of the Israelites
It's the story of David
And how he slew Goliath
Well now the king of his country
He didn't trust in him much
And so to David's alarm
He tried to fit him in his armor
But the thing was so heavy
David couldn't stand up
So he left it by the river
Where he gathered five smooth stones
I guess it's safe to say he figured
He wasn't going out alone
He's not alone
What trouble are giants
What's wrong with being small
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall
When you're fighting for Zion
And you're on the Lord's side
Well I think you're gonna find
They ain't no trouble at all

No trouble at all
No trouble at all
No trouble
Now there must have been some laughter
Among the Philistines
At the sight of this scrawny little shepherd
Coming out to meet the record-breaking mammoth of a man
Who was a killing machine
But it didn't shake David
'Cause he was smart enough to know
It's more the size of who you put your faith in
Than the size of your foe

What Trouble are Giants- Rich Mullins

What did I tell you to do?

I am the Sherlock Holmes of mothers.   I spend my time watching my children’s behaviors and trying to translate for them.  In my best moments anyway…in my not so best moments, well…not so much.   But even in my failing, God speaks…

One of our littles is struggling pretty significantly.  We have had to tighten the boundaries, make his space a bit lot smaller.  We limit his interaction with others and we limit his choices.  Everywhere he goes, he goes with mom or dad.  Our goal is not to punish him or “ground him” but instead to eliminate those choices that he really can not handle right now.  It is overwhelming to him right now to decide to not hit or throw rocks so we take those decisions out of the equation so that he can be successful.   Occasionally we give him a bit more freedom as a trial run.  Much of the time he only lasts for a few minutes before he will let me know through behavior that it is just too much.  Developmentally he needs to take a step back.   Yesterday, I attempted to get some yard work done and let him try out a bit of freedom.   In the end he spent most of his time outside sitting on the porch with his hands in his lap.   I have chosen to stop being frustrated by his way of communicating and instead develop a sense of “hearing” that I did not have before in which I draw from my own experience with childhood trauma and most importantly lean heavily on the leading of God.  

“I am curious Abraham…what are you afraid will happen if you just follow the rules?”       Silence

“Are you afraid I will forget about you?”

More Silence then…

“yes”

I understand.  To trust that I will be there even when the world is turned up down is hard.  To trust that God hasn’t forgotten when it feels like the sky is falling is hard.   Sometimes I want to pitch a fit too…just in case He has forgotten me.

“Let try again, do you think you can follow the rules?”

So we do (try again) and he doesn’t (follow the rules).  Not even two steps from the porch he stops to attempt to pull up a paving stone.

“What did I tell you to do?” I admonish, hoping to get him back on track before he goes too far off the rails….and I suddenly realize…

Those words, they were meant for me.   God was speaking again, this time through my own mouth.

“Rachel, what did I tell you to do?  Why are stopping on the way?  Why are letting the enemy distract you?  Why are you focused on so many things except the  one thing that I have called you to do?”

He has shown thee oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee.  To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.   Micah 6:8

Beautiful

I remember as a child, my mother combing my hair….putting it up in pigtails or some such.  I remember that I would cry and fuss.

“It hurts to be beautiful baby girl.” she would drawl in that southern belle voice of hers that still breaks my heart.  So much pain in that voice.

I remember, and it makes me wonder….how many times do we miss the beauty for the pain?

I think of the beautiful families that I know walking a dark road, I think of the last year and just how hard it’s been…how many times have I asked the Lord to remove the pain?   How many times do we begrudge the work that the Lord is doing because we do not understand, because it is too painful. 

It hurts to be beautiful baby girl…

We have felt led by the Lord to take another direction, not necessarily a different one but one that takes us further than we expected to go…we have walked where we felt led and the way looks dim.  It’s seems a little crazy.  It is all wild and wonderful when played out in our heads but real feet walking a very real road get blisters sometimes, they hurt, they stumble.  We get tired, we get cold and lonely and sometimes we care nothing for roses because we have been too pricked by thorns.

Beauty hurts, baby…

Today, faced with indecision and the temptation to despair I remember the roses, I remember that beauty comes with a cost and I remember that He makes all things beautiful in His time.  Once more I bow my head to the pain and I submit to the husbandry of the Father knowing that all He has for me is good.   And once more I say yes, even if in saying it I tremble for fear of what that means…

To My Son….

who is downstairs screaming…

The world is a scary place.  Adults are not always safe and they do not always do what they say they will do.   I am sorry.
I listen while you scream and I pray.  I remember what it feels like to be broken.  All of us are broken, really.   I know what you mean when you say you don’t like me.  I understand when you cry.  I remember still, what it feels like to be your own best bet.  I remember the heart’s cry: just love me please.  love me just like this.  And I know that to acknowledge that cry is so painful, so heart wrenching that you must cover it with anger because what if….no one will.  
My dear sweet child, every heart everywhere is crying the very same thing.  You are not as unlovable as you fear, you just don’t have all of your words yet.  Let me give them to you.   Let’s replace the screaming and crying with words.  Words that bring healing.  Words that speak hope.   Words that bring life.
I want you to know I love you.  I want you to know that you are amazing.  I want you to know that your smile breaks my heart.  And I want you to know that when you are done screaming, I will still be here.   Always.

If you were a boat my darling, a boat my darling

I'd be the wind at your back.

If you were afraid my darling, afraid my darling

I'll be the courage you lack.

Oh, do you know we belong together?

Oh, do you know my heart is yours?