I’m going to be brief.

I don’t feel well. I haven’t been able to sit up except to eat – and today was an “out of the house day” which required a shower that exhausted me – not to mention the actual “going out” bit. I am thankful for being able to go out. I, hopefully, will be thankful for home health nurses tomorrow (even if I am more than a bit nervous).

I have had a LOT of thoughts going through my head lately, but not had the physical ability to share – and sometimes the pain distraction kept the thoughts from developing any further than “things to consider.”

•••

Something that I have been thinking about A LOT lately is how Our Heavenly Father is a parent to us as we are trying to bring up 4 (soon to be 5) children who are made in His Image.

For instance, the other morning Claire Bear was up WAY TOO EARLY and not falling back to sleep – she was kicking (which is a Proctor thing, it seems a few of us of the Proctor blood like our legs to move around a bit) her legs against the “bed” which was actually either my belly/back or Dear Husband’s legs. And then poking us in the eyes. We wanted to sleep (it was still very dark out – not even light enough to want to see what time it really was). I know I grabbed her legs to hold them still a couple times. I know Dear Husband, whose eyes were closed, slapped her fingers away from his eyes once or twice as well.

I was thinking about the whole “corporal punishment” issue. About the “spare the rod/spoil the child” mentality. About, randomly, Psalm 23. And feeling badly about not being perceptive enough to not slap a child’s hand away from a plug on the wall where the vacuum cleaner cord just came out or from a pot of rice that just came off the stove.

I could let the child put their finger in the socket – maybe nothing WOULD happen, or just a little shock, or let them touch the pot of rice and spend the next couple hours with cold packs or even a trip to the ER to teach natural consequences. But seriously, do I have TIME for that? Can I possibly REASON with a 2 year old (or a child with FASD) with just words and NO action? Not without consequences that affect the entire family.

SO, I was thinking about my eyes being poked and my belly (which is very sore) being kicked (not maliciously, just boredom) and how asking a 2YO to NOT do it wasn’t working and for some reason Psalm 23 came into my head (another of those passages memorized as a child that comfort me at just the right time.

The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house
of the LORD
forever.

–Psalm 23 NIV (emphasis mine)

If my soul is being restored would the rod and staff be a comfort if they were used for discipline in the punishment sense? Of course not. We’d be scared of them. We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death and we don’t fear evil because GOD IS WITH US and His ROD and STAFF comfort us. The Staff to pull us away when we begin to wander. The reason why there is a hook on the end of a staff is to keep “foolish-curious-mischievous” sheep from wandering away or falling into trouble – like over a cliff – into the mouths of a predator. And the Rod, well, the little bit I remember from the Jewish sacrifice commands do instruct that the sheep brought for sacrifice to be WITHOUT BLEMISH – so the Rod is OBVIOUSLY not being used on sheep. I’m fairly certain that hitting a sheep with a rod would cause some kind of blemish. AND, even if sheep are “foolish” creatures, they are going to be afraid of a shepherd who hits them with a rod. I would assume that the rod gives COMFORT because it is a weapon against the predators to PROTECT the sheep in the valley of the shadow of death.

I really know nothing about sheep or shepherding – just saw my neighbor’s sheep getting stuck in places they really should have known better than to go OVER and OVER and OVER again.

SO, back to where I was going with these rambling thoughts in my head -

As a Momma, I often FEEL as if I am pulling my kids out of the SAME situations OVER and OVER and OVER again. Guiding them with words that they don’t hear or at least cannot stop their bodies from doing what they think will work. I often am frustrated, exasperated – uh, angry.

And, yet, even when I am angry, I really REALLY love my children. Usually the anger is at myself because I feel like such an ineffective/bad parent because I haven’t been able to guide them beyond this point yet. I yell. I stamp my feet. I leave the room in anger because I need to cool down. I (gasp, shameful blush) slam doors. Loud feels good to me. Maybe it’s a good thing that three of my children are of Mediterranean heritage (greek/italian) because loud kind of SUITS us.

But I never want my children to be afraid of me. I want them to understand that protecting them is exhausting. That my love for them does not diminish when they make mistakes (even ones that we have gone over six hundred thousand million times in the past). But I want to help them to find ways to get BEYOND the valley. I want to be the one that they run to for comfort, to be restored, to have their anxious spirits stilled.

And I am a failure at that. I’m asking the Heavenly Father to guide me as a parent. I love my children SO much. My heart aches at the injustices they perceive and experience. At the frustrations of their not understanding things that other kids do get because of teratogens that damaged their brains. At my current inability to swing them around in deep hugs – or chase them down to love on them with my whole be-ing. Or make them chocolate chip cookies after school.

•••

The more I read One Thousand Gifts the more I know I need to really meditate on scripture and let it FILL me up.  Last week the passage for the Hello Mornings Challenge study, Run2Him, was Psalm 1. And maybe that is why Psalm 23 was triggered in my way too early morning thinking – waters running…

Blessed is the man …
[whose] delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

– Psalm 1:1a, 2-3, 6

But what beautiful promises – when we delight in HIS WORD – think about it, put it into practice…
WE BEAR FRUIT!

•••

So after a weekend of NOT sleeping after 3am (well, I did, but Dear Husband DID NOT) we are trying to wean Claire from needing us to sleep. For awhile she slept in her own bed, but she has been in our bed about the time WE fall asleep EVERY NIGHT. SO, since it really has to be up to Dear Husband for the follow through, it had to start with him (I can’t get up and carry a 2YO to her bed right now). We started last night. And I heard our sweet poor baby cry. I hated it. Dear Husband made her a little bed on the floor in our room, I waddled over and laid next to her (with lotsa pillows) and rubbed her back, kissed her and told her how big she was getting – and how she’s going to be a big sister soon and big sisters are too big for mommy and daddy’s bed.

And when she woke around 3, and we still didn’t let her in bed, she muttered around the room, tearful – but not angry or confused – just saying “I don’t like MY bed, I want Momma’s bed I want Daddy’s bed. Hmmph.” Dear Husband and I, as sad as we were for her “growing up” were giggling because she DID understand that she was too big. She took her pillows and put them back on her bed, but laid on our floor and slept. And, when Dear Husband was up for the day, she got to give me morning cuddles.

I kept thinking about how Our Father would handle “this” situation. He’d just make a bigger bed I’m sure, because he can. He wouldn’t “worry” about a semi-sleeping toddler crushing a newborn nursing baby in the middle of the night…but I do. So I had to come up with some other “how does God do this with me?” And six hundred thousand million things came into my head. All of them relating to this time of being “bed ridden.”

And what does he do when I am frustrated about not being able to do what I want (even if what I want to do is just GO TO THE BATHROOM?), He whispers sweet-everythings in my ear, heart, spirit. He sends lovelies to send me “out of the blue” prayers and verses, to sit with me on my bed and talk about heart-stirrings, to come with meals, cookies, peppermint mochas, even someone who suffered with infertility went MATERNITY CLOTHES shopping for me with joy.

Then the King will say to those [the sheep] on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
– Matthew 25:34-36 emphasis mine

Anyway, I just want to say thank you who have been treating me so blessedly…

You have been the voice of God to me, encouraging me during this time of “imprisonment” in my bed.

And somehow, you have encouraged me to be a better mother.

•••

Thanks for reading all the way to the end. I am quite the rambler aren’t I?
so much for brief