Joe and I are approaching our 48th year of marriage—in December we will celebrate our 47th anniversary. We have kids in their forties—how did that happen? My son recently attended his 20th high school class reunion—impossible.
If I can impart nothing else to you this year, I want to celebrate the joy of walking through life with the father of your children, sharing your history, rejoicing in your common achievements, celebrating your grandchildren’s successes, and experiencing the wonder of a warm and cozy Empty Nest. Right now your nest is full of noisy chicks, demanding your attention, trying to push aside siblings and even their daddy for your undivided attention. Remember: the best thing you can do for your kids is to love their daddy!
I am quick to add that no woman should be forced to live with abuse, for herself or for her children, and if you need help in difficult times, we are your sisters. We will be here for you with no condemnation, no condescension, only love and care. That said, if you are in a marriage without abuse, God hates divorce, but He will not leave you in a less than perfect place. I want to tell you that you don’t have to settle for less than contentment in your marriage—it has taken time, faith, patience, prayer and tons of love, but I have seen my “John Wayne” male learn to affirm, to express tenderness, to be the man of my dreams.
At the MOPS convention I attended a fabulous workshop “Speaking Your Man’s Language: A Woman’s Influence on the Man in Her Life.” The speaker, author Rick Johnson, gave us keys to understanding the extremely powerful influence wives have on the men in their lives. Johnson wants to “empower women to influence their men to be all they are meant to be” and to communicate to us “the secrets to bringing about positive change” in our men. (From the workbook, MOPS 2009 Convention, p. 38) I have ordered books so that this will be our beginning study when we gather once a month.
As a mother of eight months—sixteen if you count time inside the womb when I first grew to love our firstborn—I was far from my sisters and my mother, and my little girl was already experiencing her second or third ear infection. We had driven her in the car, and I sat for hours in a steaming bathroom, the shower running full blast, so I could nurse her. I don’t know when I had slept last. I couldn’t be angry with her could I? She was in pain and she didn’t understand.
I staggered to her bedroom, collapsing in the rocking chair, trying to sing once again, rubbing her back. “Please, please go to sleep, please,” but sleep did not come for her. My arms jerked as I fought sleep myself, fearing I would drop her. I held her up and heard myself screaming, “Just go to sleep! You have got to go to sleep. Mommy is so tired.” Horrified, realizing terror had replaced pain in her wails, I clutched her to myself. “God, help me! Forgive me! Don’t let her be a schizophrenic because of what I do to her as a mother.” Rocking her softly, crooning to her soothingly, I did not know what to do.
“Bring her into our bed, Honey,” my husband said from the doorway. “You’ve got to lie down.” We lay her between us, and she inched around the bed between us, but she got quieter and quieter until she finally gave up, a heap on her Daddy’s leg. I was inches away from abusing the daughter I loved, the child I had prayed to have. I wasn’t a cruel mom, or a bad mom, I was simply an exhausted mom who had faced the end of herself and found God seemingly distant.
In 1968 MOPS did not exist. Thank God for MOPS. Thank God for connections—a friend whom you can call in the middle of the night, a mentor whose life demonstrates that there is life after toddlers. You will survive. Your children will quickly slip out of your arms, out of the house, and out of the nest. But, for now, Mothers of Preschoolers need MOPS, and I will try to be here for you, because mothering truly matters, and no one should mother alone.
Spring is coming. Mommies are welcoming new babies. Country folks on farms everywhere say the hens are "going broody." Have you ever raised chicks? The hen decides she wants to quit laying eggs for you and me and raise some babies, so she refuses to leave the nest. She hovers over those eggs.
This is the season of creation. New Beginnings. Easter. Each spring we see in our gardens the divine picture of the Creative nature of God. In Genesis, the Holy Spirit "moved" over the waters. The Hebrew means "fluttered," but newer translations read "hovered." Maybe the country folks would say God broods over his creation. He hovers, flutters, broods still. Each time someone begins seeking Him, His creative work is seen again. And the exciting part is He continues brooding over us, hovering over us.
What is the first thing proud parents say as they hover over their newborn? He has your eyes. She has your chin. She is laid back like you. He never sleeps, just like you. They are looking for their own characteristics, their genes reproduced in their offspring.
Likewise God hovers over us, looking for His nature in us. You see, when we are born again, He breathes His own Life into us, God life, then He continues working out His nature in us. Don't stop with one spiritual experience, profound though it may have been. Allow Him to continually brood over you. Let His Word work in you until Christ be formed in you, His child. The more we open ourselves to God, the more others will say: "She looks just like her Father," and they will want to be born by the Spirit of God, too.
That is what MOPS is all about: God growing in us, and others longing for His life as they see Him in us. If you have never allowed God to begin His creative work in your life, in your home, talk to someone today. Let this be the best spring of your life, the beginning of a whole new life as a Child of God.
Today I want to share with you about a feeling common to everyman, and especially to Mothers of Preschoolers. Trapped!
· I am trapped, I am stuck in this house with __(however many) sick, screaming, kids/brats/you name it and I just want to get out of here. I wish I’d never had children. Where is their father when you need him? Why did I ever quit my job to stay home with this?
· I am trapped in this marriage—now, mind you, God calls us to freedom from abuse, abandonment, adultery—but you must know if you have no Scriptural reason, you are TRAPPED! I remember when I was young one day I sank down on the front porch, staring into the woods, and I asked God: “Am I stuck in this marriage for the rest of my life?” (Now, you must know I was newly saved and disobediently married a man who was not committed to Christ at that time. We had been married 2 or 3 years.) I felt God saying quite clearly: “Yes, so you might as well work hard to improve it!”
MOPS is here to remind you that time passes quickly and seasons change. The investment you make in this season pays multiplied dividends later:
· My adult children are here for me.
· They are my best friends.
· They have forgiven all my mistakes, yes, even my sins—what a relief!
· They call me on a regular basis, visit often, and welcome me into their homes.
Remember, as the old preacher says: the best Scripture to claim when you are rearing children is that wonderful verse from Luke 2, “and it came to pass . . .”
I know it seems forever now, but I repeat so often: this precious time is fleeting. When they are teenagers, pray they will:
· still come to you with endless questions,
· still turn to you for advice and comfort,
· still take your hand occasionally and even give you hugs,
· still want to pray with you,
· still seek your approval of their friends.
So, what can you do when you feel trapped?
· Hit Parade song from my youth: Count your blessings.
· Cry out to God—brief prayers work! I remember sitting on the stairs, with Candace, 2, on one knee, and Beth, 3, on the other knee, with my hugely swollen Tom-belly in the middle, singing “Jesus loves me, this I know,” with tears streaming down my cheeks.
· Put yourself in Time Out. (Watch the children get big eyes as they realize mommies, too, need to get themselves together, get a handle on their emotions, and make better choices. They will learn from that.)
· Remember Joshua and Caleb, who waited 40 years for the Promised Land!
· Pushing Joe in the broom closet at our daughter’s wedding at St. Matthews—when all the children are gone, we will only have one another!
· Reminder: pray for your husband, men feel trapped by the overwhelming responsibility to provide for those dependent on them, less able to take risks with their employment, the source of income for his entire family. Maybe he feels he’s like to do something else, something on his own, but he dares not leave his security. That’s what mid-life crises are all about, feeling trapped with no way out. Make your home and marriage worth his while!
· We have been delivered from the snare of the fowler, Psalm 91—satan is a liar and the father of them, a defeated foe, a roaring lion with no teeth—he seeks whom he may devour, don’t let it be you or your family!
One person’s “trap” is another person’s dream—when Beth was helping with MOPS, she tired of listening to complaints and whines about their husbands, and told me: “All I want is someone to provide for me so I don’t have to go to work to support my son.”
Consider your “Trap:” could you think of it as:
1. a nest, a circle of protection about you and your children?
2. a passing moment in eternity?
3. a school of learning to crucify self, to deny your immediate pleasures for a greater good, a place of maturing?
Ah, Traps can be:
· where Love grows.
· where patience has her perfect work.
· where God meets us in our every day and provides bread, His manna, for our need.
· Where children experience unconditional love and learn forgiveness, self-discipline, delayed gratification—and teach you the same!
· Where we reach out for more: more love, more patience, more forgiveness, more of God Himself.
So let us pause a moment and thank God for our “traps.”
Most of you know I have struggled with back pain for several years. I have such limited mobility that I sit in a chair to cook and to do dishes. I spend most of my time sitting, reading a book, doing crosswords, listening to the news, or on the computer. The larger trial this brings is feelings of worthlessness, of uselessness. I feel so unproductive. Joe is doing housework after working all day—that KILLS me! He keeps saying he would rather have me the way I am than not at all, but I “feel” like such a burden, which has compelled me to think about validation. What makes us Valid?
Many of us are validated by our employment, and I encourage everyone to have life skills, doing what you love to do, you do it well, and that provides validation. Many young women in MOPS have set aside their professions in response to the call to be full time mothers, and now all you hear is baby talk all day, you find cleaning up spills not too intellectually challenging, and you embrace MOPS as a time for adult talk, a break, laughter, and validation for time spent as a mother. Being a mentor, affirming your decisions, has been validating for me.
Our son, Tom called us recently. With a hint of desperation in his voice, he told me he had been called from work to pick up Caleb at the Day Care. When he went in the little fellow was listless, fevered, obviously in misery, and holding on to the day care worker’s hand. “I knew he didn’t need to be with anyone except someone who loves him, and Pam and I are both slammed at work this week.” The week before they had traded days caring for him through pink eye, but he absolutely was in a bind this week, both of them had pressing deadlines.
Fortunately, that was right up my handicapped alley. I replied that it sounded like that boy needed a little Grammy time, perhaps not as much as Grammy needed him: I could say in bed and be helpful! I can’t do much, but I can stay in bed and watch Thomas the Tank Engine with a sick kid. Since I ended up driving, I was thankful my trial was in my left leg, and I have heated seats—driving is easy for me. I got my ducks in a row and left at 4 AM the next day. We got Caleb on antibiotics, and he and I settled down to beat this thing. He lay on top of my stomach, fat as it is, lifted my shirt and rubbed his hands and face all over it. I had just read about the amount of skin to skin time humans need—babies upwards of five hours/day! So, instead of being humiliated over the weight this immobility has put on me, I just let him rub away while I patted his head, and his back. He didn’t see me as “fat” or “useless,” he saw me as his beloved grandmother who spent all day comforting him. We giggled together and held one another all day.
Every mother knows that children are “useless.” They can’t even say thank you, they have no appreciation for your sacrifices. Yet when we look at them asleep on their beds we are overwhelmed with the wonder of their being. They don’t have to “do” anything for us to love them, just like I don’t have to “do” anything for Joe to love me. Then I got to thinking about how I had five kids, not just one, plus all their friends from broken homes. One of them was sick or needed, wanting help with homework or cheering at soccer, basketball or band, and I began to meditate on how truly valid I was in my life, although I struggle with not paying my way, helping with the expenses of raising these five kids, and staying home all these years.
Recently one of us ran into an ex-MOPS who said MOPS is the only place where young moms are getting validation for being mothers. Here at MOPS we affirm the role of friends, good friends, the need for girl-friends. My nieces’ counselor said her marital problems stemmed from trying to make her husband her girl friend. Men have no idea your feelings as a mother and a wife, we need Girl Friends. As a young woman, I did not appreciate women: they seemed silly and immature during the sorority period of my life, so I wrote off “silly females,” dug into my studies and selected males as my best friends. That was a Poor Choice; listen and Learn from my mistakes!
It was coming to MOPS that taught me the unique strengths of women as Keepers of the Home, as Nurtures of the next generation. The Pro-Life Movement taught me the value of women as the sanctuaries of the next generation. Psalm 68 teaches the women are a great company in God’s Army—an irreplaceable company!
Every man in the generic sense, male and female, will fin our only genuine validation is in Jesus.
Men, even loving husbands, will fail you, will be unappreciative, ungrateful, even critical, adding to your negative feelings.
Even the most loving and respectful children will grow up and be gone, with lives and families of their own.
In Christ alone we find our worth.
· In what He paid to bring you home to Father’s house.
· That He left His home in heaven, the worship of the angels.
· That He chose to live among us, not as a king or conqueror, but as a common laborer, a carpenter. He validated the ordinary lives by His life.
· That He chose to die—He didn’t have to, He could have called ten thousand angels, but He would not have had you and me by His side for eternity.
· That He sent His own Spirit to gift us, guide us and help us remember all He said.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, before Time, made this decision to create a Man to love and to return that love, Knowing Man would fall, Redemption was ordained, with full knowledge of the sinless blood sacrifice that had to be made. That this God in the flesh Man died and rose again validates us for all time, and for eternity. God saw you from the beginning of time, and He inscribed you in the palm of His hand and wrote you on His heart. No other religion has a God that dies for man. In other religions man must die for their gods, but in Christianity, as God promised Abraham so many years ago, God provides Himself the sacrifice. That makes you worth something, Girl!
Jesus, we love you so much, and we are so grateful you chose us, you chose to dwell among us, to suffer all things and learn obedience through suffering, to allow the Jewish priests to betray you, to face down temptation 40 days in the wilderness and again in Gethsemane, to surrender yourself to the Roman soldiers for cruel torture, and to suffer the agonies of a common criminal on a cross. What wondrous love you have demonstrated. How valuable we are to heaven. That is validation, from the Eternal One Himself. Thank you.
Did you see Good Morning Viet Nam? Good Morning Mothers of Preschoolers! Every day is a challenge with this age—what will they get into, what will they learn, how will they hurt themselves? Moms must be ready for anything—especially when you add a sibling or two to the mix! Ah, Mama, you are a genius. You can hear them half a house away, you can show them something they have never seen or known before, you teach them the whole concept of verbalization, and you can comfort them better than anyone else in the whole wide world. When your kids are sick or hurting, no one is better than Mama. I remember when Tom was critically ill with spinal meningitis, and I crawled into his bed and nursed him. When he came through intact, with no brain damage, his pediatrician attributed it to a nursing mother crawling under the oxygen tent. Mothers are magic!
Welcome to MOPS 2008-2009. My job as mentor is to convince each one of you that you are the expert on your child. Not a teacher, not a psychologist, not a mentor, no one knows that child better than you do, and they all work for you—never, never forget it! You know when their feelings are hurt or when they are pouting, when they are coming down with something or when they are seeking attention, (we all miss it sometimes!) You are the One and Only Mom. God gave that child to you and their father for you to rear, obviously you will do the best job for him, and obviously she needs you.
Moms come in many shapes and colors, and some are alone, with only half of God’s intended team. These moms need extra support; they are truly heroes because one tiny infant can max out any parent in an amazingly short time! But with God, all things are possible—that’s why He promises to be a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow. Remember kids are great forgivers, when you blow it, kneel down in front of them and ask for their forgiveness—it is so sweet. They can teach us so much about forgiveness—maybe that is why the Master said we must come as little children.
This mentor makes no claim to perfection. I still make mistakes with my adult kids, so I can’t tell you what to do—after all, you are the expert on your child. We moms can give each other advice and encouragement, but mostly support as we walk through the challenging toddler years together. You are not alone! Learn to lean on your discussion group, be honest when you are hurting or discouraged, this is a safe place and we are all in the same boat.
In February our thoughts turn to romance. Remember the courting days when he was your night in shining armor? Now you hardly get to talk to the guy. He comes home, and you are sorting the last wash and fixing dinner. You still have to get the kids bathed and the toys are strewn everywhere. When the kids are finally down, you hardly feel like romance. After all, romance got you into this exhausting routine
But the best thing you can do for those precious little crumb-grinders is to love their daddy. I hear couples say they will be mature and the children won't get hurt, but that is impossible. Divorce rips the children's security from underneath them. The only things that can protect them from that is both parents' commitment to the family. The key is to keep in mind that Love is a Choice. We women get trapped because we are oriented to our emotions. Believe me, you cannot let your feelings rule your life! Communicate your hurts (in a positive manner) so resentments don't build up, but be quick to forgive. Paul writes in the epistles that we have to cast down thoughts. The battle truly is in the mind.
When those times come and all you can think of is how tough life is, how difficult this relationship has become, stop and pray for your husband. Thank God for his gifts and strengths, pray for him not to give in to temptations--remember that gal at work doesn't have to pick up his dirty socks, smell his morning breath, or listen to him fuss at the kids. He sounds intelligent at meetings and looks good when you send him out the door in that freshly ironed shirt! Remember why you were attracted to him; take out the photo albums and remember the good times. And remember--you have morning breath, too! (and also a few bad traits he puts up with).
Once you cast down those bad thoughts and tell that accusing voice in your head to shut up, then act like you love him. Is that living a lie? No, it is walking by faith--faith is the substance of things not seen, the evidence of things hoped for. It make take a while, but as you behave lovingly and reach out lovingly, the stars will come out again
From forty years perspective, I promise you it is worth every struggle. We share so much history--no one knows me like Joe. He was with me when our son almost died; he was with me when we left his clothes at home when we left for vacation. Our children visit both parents at the same place. One couple sits in the parent's pew at the weddings and the christenings. And you, too, will receive a card on your anniversary that says: thanks for showing me how it’s done!
The old saying, in the Latin, times flies. I remember my second son, David, asking me why a year was so long to his birthday when I kept saying how quickly mine rolls around and how time flies. He did not have the same perspective, to him it took forever for his birthdays to come. (He wanted to be big, like his brother.) Since he was working on fractions at the time, I compared 1/10 to 1/41. "Which piece of the time-cake would you prefer?" I asked, and of course one tenth would be a much bigger piece. To him, a year was one tenth of his life, and as the years slip by, each year is less and less of our lives.
An infant is just not the same little person as a year-old toddler, and that is why the older females in your life tell you to treasure each little change, to savor those precious months of dependency. Soon they will be memories. As Dr. Lehman says, kids are wired to become independent, and they grow away from us every day, every week, every year, until you have a teenager, the most ungrateful creature on the planet! We are in such a hurry to grow up, but we cannot prolong those perfect years, and the 1/41st becomes the 1/65th.
But growing up never stops. We all come to the place of growing out more than up, but the inner man, hopefully, never stops its process of growing better, more self-controlled, more mature--can we say "wiser?" And these little children you have in your house challenge you to do that. They challenge your patience, they challenge your knowledge and your wisdom. Teething rings become science projects and walkers become knee pads and helmets. They toddle, they walk, they run, and then they move out. Your house is empty, but your heart is a parent forever. Hopefully, If you did grow, if you did ask their forgiveness time and time again when you blew it, if you were there to hold their little hand when they learned to walk, to cheer them as they ran, and to wave encouragingly as they moved on, they will come back. They will call you and ask advice, they will want to share their decisions, and then that most precious gift: their children. And we call that grand-parenting.
As a grandparent, I want you to know how precious your children are to their grandparents, and as a Mentor, I want to thank you for sharing them with me. Children make us grow!
