Security and Legacy

Last week I was in a very familiar atmosphere known as dysfunction. I am in my mother's house where, under her roof there is more than a few spiritual issues that need to be addressed. She has a heart of gold, and I love her; however, our different faith-journeys have taken us to different levels of spiritual maturity. Also there are other people in her life that add to the complication and conflicts.

I absolutely hate that feeling in the place you call home. Security and spiritual covering is so important to me, especially now with trying to create that for my children. I had, (what I thought was), a very protected environment for them before and now I was back in my mother's house reminiscing on all the old drama we had under this roof growing up. I reached my drama-threshold, felt so trapped, and was ready to run FAST.

A few days later I had calmed down and was available to hear God's voice. I heard lyrics from a song that go, "take control of the atmosphere," and that was God's was of revealing to me that I didn't need to run, I needed him to take control.

Then God started to show me the truth. The truth is that I will never feel like I can provide perfect protection for my girls. There is no perfect place here on earth, no matter where I run. Plus, if I do run, I will run right into an Ishmael, (figuratively speaking). What he said I needed to do was pray his authority and control into the atmosphere around me.

This week it is calming down around here, praise God, and a new subject of concern has arrived; legacy. At Natanya's nap times I spend time chatting with little Mikayla. This week as I sat there tickling her, her first real giggles started to become much more pronounced. At first I smiled, but then my eyes filled up with tears.

I realized, not for the first time, the deep pain of not being able to share these moments with their father. I dug deeper. I don't just want to share them with someone, I want to be recognized and appreciated as the caretaker of someone's precious vessels of their legacy. As a woman, the desire to submit to someone's leadership and vision goes beyond myself and into the desire to train up that person's children to do the same. I sat there for a moment, giving this pain to God. I've learned how important it is to really spend time mourning in those moments what has been lost, instead of trying to replace it quickly with (another) "Ishmael."

Yesterday I talked to my wonderfully anointed little brother who reminded me that I am appreciated for building a legacy, because I am raising up children to carry Jesus' legacy. Then I remembered that I can already see that in work in my very small children. Natanya is only two, but she can actually share the gospel. It goes something like, "Jesus nice, people not nice, Jesus get boo boos, die, crying, three days, alive! YAY happy! no more boo boos! Jesus is God." And she even understands that because of his ability to  be healed of his "boo boos" we can also pray to him and be healed of our's. Amazing. So now my prayer is that God will give me an extra boost when I don't receive the more immediate and physical appreciation that a husband and father of my children would normally provide.

Moments

At 5:00pm I made the quick decision to try and quickly rearrange the furniture in Natanya's room to make room for the crib. I was hoping I could do it fast because Nat would start getting hungry for dinner soon. Unfortunately, what I thought would take 15 minutes was going over 45. So I grabbed the girls and headed downstairs to throw some noodles in a pot. Now I was getting close to Mikayla's next feeding time and rushing, which is probably why I dropped a glass bottle of olive oil all over the kitchen floor. Just then, I heard Natanya say, "mommy wet," but I figured a peepee accident could wait 'til I cleaned up this crazy oily mess. However, that oily mess spread all over the place because my instinct to get the glass off the floor fast with a broom neglected the fact that a broom would work against me with the oily issue. Just then, Mikayla started crying in wonder where her milk was. I ran upstairs to get Nat new bottoms, put Kay in the swing with a binky (she was not amused), but then the water in the pot was boiling over. Whatever sweat I had worked up from moving furniture upstairs was just the beginning of the sweaty, oily, and shaking (I get low blood sugar and shake sometimes when I need to eat) mess I was now. I took care of the pot, put the binky back in Kay's mouth, asked Natanya to come get her new clothes on...but she slipped. She didn't have an accident, she said "wet" because she had poured water all over the living room floor. I ran over to comfort her, cleaned up the water, changed her, held her why I poured some sauce over the noodles, sat her in her highchair with a fork, meanwhile getting oil all over my flip flops and dragging it back and forth between rooms. I put the binky back in Kay's mouth again and did the fastest unrolling of paper towels in history. I got most of the oil up, ran back to Mikayla to feed her, and sat there catching my breath for 15 minutes. I went back to finish cleaning up all the oil then heated up some noodles for myself.

As I ate my dinner I said, "wow God," then I smiled and thanked God for the 20 minutes I had earlier to sit in the sun on the hammock.