Talk About These Words…in a Walmart Parking Lot
“I am a child of God. My children’s behaviors do not determine who I am. It is not a reflection on my identity in who I am in Christ.”
Deep breath in: “Yah…”
Deep breath out: “weh.”
“God sees me. He is with me. There is no need to explode or panic.”
One of the toddlers is screaming and kicking my seat over and over behind me in the van.
My daughter is in the back seat throwing her own fit in a preteen way…on the way to an anxiety attack.
My hands grip the steering wheel, daring to leave the parking spot. My voice speaks to the windshield.
“Yah…weh. Yah…weh. Yah…weh.”
How did we all get here?
We were in Nashville, Tennessee for a few weeks because Brett was acting in a TV show. I find the nearest Walmart to buy a few needed items. Once we walk into the store, I grab a cart and assess where I’m putting the twins. Reagan tells me, “No want it,” as I pick him up to place him in the back of the cart. “I wanna walk!” he demands.
OK. Let’s see how this goes since they are getting too big for both of them to sit in the cart. Roman decides he wants to follow his brother and walk too.
Until he doesn’t want to walk anymore…about 10 steps into the store.
“Hold you.” He reaches his arms up to me as I’m about to grab sweet potatoes.
“I can’t hold you, buddy.”
And so it begins…the wailing. I pick him up and put him in the front of the cart. He resists and continues to cry and scream…
“NO WANT IT! NO WANT IT! I WANNA WALK!”
I take him out, since now he wants to walk.
“HOLD YOU! HOLD YOU!”
“Roman, I cannot hold you right now. I need to get groceries. You can choose to either walk or sit in the cart.”
He throws himself on the ground, screaming and kicking, in the middle of the aisle between the potato bins and the bakery.
I decide quickly that he isn’t going to win this battle. I’m not giving in. I will not carry him the entire store, because he’s now three years old and needs to understand that he’s becoming too heavy for this mama who already struggles with back pain. Also, I already told him I wouldn’t carry him, so I don’t want to reward his fit throwing with: I scream = I get my way.
And so I win. Or do I, really?
Radnor Lake State Park - Nashville, Tennessee
For the next twenty-five minutes, from one end of the store to the other, Roman cries, screams, follows us a few steps, and then throws himself down on the ground. I put him in the cart, which he continues to scream that he wants to walk. I put him down. The cycle continues.
People look. I don’t make eye contact. One older woman smiles a big smile. Is that pity or understanding? I keep walking, telling myself, “Don’t cry. Don’t break down. It’s really OK. People can judge or be annoyed, but they have no idea my life, my circumstances, my children, my heart…”
We come to the camera aisle because Kherington wants to buy film for her mini polaroid camera. Roman is in the cart at this point of the cycle, still not coming up once for air.
But now, Kherington is crying because of how much the film costs. Oh, boy. Do I have a conversation right here, right now about money, how much things cost, the economy, how money doesn’t grow on trees? (Thanks, Dad, for that one that I use on my own kids!)
I look over my shoulder and Reagan is hitting a TV with something as Damon is trying to pull him away. Sigh.
I ignore everything and focus on Kherington. I had told her prior that she needed to use her own money to pay for the film. She’s whining about how unfair it is how much things cost. I give her a short lesson on money to help her understand, calm her down, and make a good decision.
She decides, and we move on while Roman continues to wail…
And is still crying, while kicking the back of my seat, as we sit in the parking lot of Walmart.
“Yah…weh.” I breathe in and out Yahweh’s name over and over. The Name that spoke everything into existent. The Name that is giving me breath now. The Name that surrounds me, sees me, and never leaves me.
His Name, His presence, bringing Him into this moment, it calms me in the midst of the screaming and the anxiety that is building and building in the van…
“ROMAN, PLEASE STOP!!! Why does life have to be so hard? Why can’t it always be happy?” Kherington laments over her toddler brother’s own laments.
This isn’t the first time she has asked why life can’t always be happy. Honestly, her heart echos my own.
But her heart isn’t the only thing echoing me: She’s getting really upset, in a panic-type way. She’s crying, her breathing is shallow, and having hard time controlling herself. She’s not only spiraling in emotion but also in her thoughts. Then reacts, as she lashes out at Roman for his own fit throwing.
Where has she seen this before?
Yeah, I’ll give you one guess.
I have voiced out loud my fear to Brett and close friends: My daughter will never want to have children once she leaves our house someday. My example will deter her, remembering motherhood only as hardships, chaos, crying, and even death.
After all, in her eleven short years of life, Kherington has witnessed the hardships, chaos, crying, and yes, even death. These last three years of raising twin boys has not been easy. Most recently, their second to third year of life has been chaos because they continue to need most all of my attention, are non-stop moving, and every day is striving to keep them physically alive and not hurting themselves (and each other). Oh, and I have to fit in homeschooling the two older kids, in addition to being a wife and other responsibilities.
Now, the twins have entered into full-blown terrible-threes. That thing called sin nature…it’s all coming out. It’s not only the physical demand of parenting two toddler boys; it’s heart issues and discipline we are engaged in. Many times throughout the day, someone is throwing a fit and crying. (I’m not exempt.)
Recently, Brett said that he hopes our kids have twins someday so they understand our parenting struggles. I laughed and said, “Why? They already ARE raising twins!!!” Especially, Kherington, being my oldest daughter with a God-given maternal instinct. She has raised them with me, but I have to remind her over and over she isn’t the mother and doesn’t have to bare the responsibility.
“But I want them to obey you, Mom! I want it easier for you and to help you!” She tells me many times. Even though I want her to be seen as big sister, not only another mother to her brothers, my heart does swell. It’s endearing that she sees me and is trying to help subdue the chaos. Trying. We are all trying.
And then there is death. She’s seen it twice. My body giving birth to death, which one of those brothers she has held delicately in her small hands of seven years old. Why keep trying if death keeps giving?
But death twice gave twice: two twin boys. Who also almost both died after birth. Furthermore, she observed Brett and me endure the suffering, the fighting for another brother’s life, the fear of losing a third brother’s life.
Holding her brother, Roi - April 2019
Then there have been my reactions and failures and struggles throughout my motherhood journey. She doesn’t know or understand them all, but she watches…and as I have already mentioned…echoes me.
I’m learning, oh way too slowly mind you, that I can either keep striving to have it all together as a mom or use the hardships, chaos, crying, and even death, as eternal, life-giving lessons that she will remember and take with her the rest of her life.
The striving…yeah…it’s not working. I’ve given up. I have chosen to homeschool my children, which means they are with me almost every waking moment. They. See. It. All. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ve prayed and sought the Spirit to search my heart to ensure I am doing what’s best for my kids. For this current season, the answer that He continues to whisper to my soul from the first moment I knew He was asking me to homeschool seven years ago…
“These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, HCSB)
No matter what I’m doing, where I am, whether I’m slaying or drowning, I have the opportunity to point it all to the gospel. I cannot only teach the gospel and the Word when things are happy and shiny and clean and calm. In fact, I personally have witnessed how the Lord has used the darkness, the valleys, the sin, the grief, the tears, and the chaos to further understand the gospel and His faithful love and grace. And if I waited to teach them the Word of God when things are clean and calm…well, that would never happen.
So here we are: A toddler in full blown fit-throwing car seat mode. A preteen throwing her own fit, complaining why can’t life be happy. And me, breathing the Name of Life-giving breath over and over to calm my soul to be able to speak Truth over the chaos.
“Kherington, honey, deep breaths. Yah…weh.” I have taught her to do the same as I have.
She breathes in and out. It starts to calm her down so that she can actually hear and process what I’m about to say, above the emotions fighting to control her.
“Listen. If life were always happy, we would believe that we didn’t need Jesus. If everything was calm and we had our own way, we would be trying to be like God and wouldn’t need to depend on Him. But that’s not how life is, is it? We need Jesus to help us because we are sinners in need of His grace and help.
“Also, life is hard but it makes the way to produce the fruit of the Spirit. What’s the fruit of the Spirit?”
“Love, joy, peace.” Damon chimes in too as we list them all. “Patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.”
“It’s really, really easy to have these fruit when life is happy and easy. It’s easy to love and be kind when life isn’t hard. But it’s hard to be gentle and patient with Roman when he is throwing these fits. When you produce the fruit of the Spirit in these hard moments, you know He has worked in your heart, and you are becoming more like Him.”
At some point, I always wonder if and when they tune me out. I don’t stop speaking even if they are distracted by something else. Because I need to hear it. I need to be reminded of the Truth in the hard and not happy places.
I eventually pull out of the Walmart parking lot. I drive back to our AirBnb, with Roman continuing to kick my seat. Instead of exploding in anger or throwing my own pity party that life is hard and unfair, as I have done many times in the past, I meditate on what I just told the kids.
That God is using the hardships, the chaos, and the crying to produce the fruit of the Spirit in all of us as a family. This is the way that the gospel becomes not only words recited from memory, but life-changing power and strength transforming us to be more like Jesus.
Additionally, instead of hiding the messy and mistakes, or beating myself up that I’m failing my children, I can show my children “that even our best love is a shadow of a greater love.” Dane Ortlund in is his life-changing book, Gentle and Lowly, says that our job as parents is “to make the tender heart of Christ irresistible and unforgettable. Our goal is that our kids would leave the house at eighteen and be unable to live the rest of their lives believing that their sins and sufferings repel Christ.”
So why would I want to hide the messy and the mistakes? Why would I hide the sin and sufferings, striving for perfection, comfort, and calm for my family? Rather responding to moments like this Walmart trip as negative and defeating, I want to use them as opportunities to point my children to the heart of Christ, who draws near to us in the hardships, chaos, crying, and even death.
“Mom?” Kherington gets my attention on a different chaotic day.
“Yeah?”
“I want to be a wife and mom someday.”
I choke back tears and give her a hug. “That’s wonderful, honey. We will see what God has for you.”
I release her and my heart cries, “Oh Lord, remove my fears that I’m not enough for my children. You are enough. Use all of me and all of our life experiences to point them to You and your transforming love and grace. May my children leave our home someday never ever doubting your tender heart toward them no matter the sin they commit or suffering they endure.”
Read how we were drawn near to the heart of Christ through death, in my book Living Hope.