Wisdom

Moving Sucks.  I know.  Get a grip, Caroline.  You just moved to one of the greatest cities in America AND you are living in one of the greatest parts of that city.  The world is at my fingertips, right?  I should be happy.   My dear family who has been with me through the ups and downs in my life know I process things with my emotions, an open book lacking much mystery.  I mean, geez, I even started a blog to throw my emotions up on the internet for all to read. But, it is one thing to deal with my own emotions and quite another to understand and be patient with my children's.

When we relate to someone we often project our own emotional personality upon them, assuming that they are like ourselves, processing the world, understanding it, and relating to it in the same way that we do.  We gravitate toward people who understand our emotional grid.  Creative personalities find each other.  Organized personalities affirm and uphold one another.  Exclusive people find comfort in baptizing their behavior with other elites.  Or perhaps you are different than most.  Perhaps you are drawn to your opposite- an introvert finds comfort with the extravert, the emotional one finds comfort with the stoic and stable, the reflective intellect finds companionship with the carefree 'carpe diem' personality.  Sometimes we are not afforded to freedom to relate only to those we understand or those who reflect our own way of processing the world. This is the case, for example, in PARENTING and THE CHURCH.

This move has not been our easiest.  My children are older now than they were three years ago, and so are their emotions.  Because I process pain, fear, and disappointment through tears and words, I guess I assumed that my daughters would be the same.  I realized this morning through prayerful tears crying out  to God for wisdom that we are different.  Rynn has skipped through this move with barely a tear, and so I, projecting my own emotional way of dealing with pain, assumed she was just fine, rolling through these changes unaffected.  But, I have noticed an increasing amount of anger building in her which is set off at random times by things as small as what shoes she will wear to school or what water bottle should go with her to the classroom. This morning she begin hitting and punching me in anger because I asked her to put her shoes on.  I left her alone in her screaming anger to go upstairs, (cry), and pray out loud that God would give me wisdom in mothering these children.  When I came back downstairs and quietly sat next to her, saying nothing, she leaned into me and said without tears, "Mommy, I miss my old school.  When I asked a girl to play with me, she said she didn't want to be my friend.  My teacher keeps telling me I wear the wrong shoes for PE.  I don't have anyone to sit with at lunch.  I just want to be back at Richmond learning Japanese." And then she was finished.  And I had an "ah ha" moment.  Open your eyes, Caroline.  See her anger and her outbursts at me.  This may not be the way I work through my hurt, but it is the way she feels.

What relationships are you in which you assume the other person should be responding to the world in the way that you do?  How are you shutting them out because they are not like you?  How can you be present to be with them in their difference?  Pat Roach preached on  Psalm 139 (see Hope Sermons, right sidebar) and spoke of how God knows us.  He formed us and made us.  How do we run from others and in that running run from God?  How can I help Rynn?  How can I be patient with her?  Perhaps the answers to these questions will be answered in our cries for wisdom.

One of the blessings God has given me here is a new friendship with someone who recently lost her daughter to a brain tumor.  She reminded me how much we parents want to protect our children from pain, hurt, or failure. Yet, it was in suffering that she saw her own daughter's faith blossom and minister to not only her but hundreds of others.  Starting a new school in a new city is hardly cancer, but I pray that the lessons we learn in these light trials may also draw us to the source of wisdom, truth, goodness, and life- Christ Himself.