Angry Momma
These tiny men that live in my house. These tiny, precious men who sleep in bunkbeds with astronaut pillows and race cars clutched in their fists. These tiny men who suddenly and mysteriously transform into robots and Marvel Superheros and Power Rangers at any given moment. These tiny men who spent nine months, tucked beneath my lungs, listening to the sound of my voice and the rhythm of my heart.
It is shocking and ugly and humbling, how very angry I can become with the precious, tiny men who came into being inches from my beating heart.
The heat that boils in my chest and burns into my face.
It surprises me. And catches me off guard.
The intensity of that fire.
When I'm running late, and they are moving slow or not at all.
When I have a list to accomplish, and it keeps getting sabotaged.
When the noise inside our four walls keeps getting louder and louder and louder.
And it's tempting.
To justify that heat. That anger. That sharp tone. That steely expression.
I want it to be their fault.
Their behavior.
Their attitude.
Them.
Not me.
But as I parent them... I sense the Lord parenting me... and so much more gently, and so much more consistently reminding me that their behavior, their attitude, the moments their rough edges meet my rough edges... it doesn't MAKE me angry, it only shines light on the anger that is already there.
Anger I didn't know I had.
Anger that can only be elicited by a two year old and a four year old putting toys in the toilet, pouring cups of water out of the bath tub, and throwing their stuffed animals at the Christmas tree and epic displays of tempers and independence and stubborness.
My boys have become the brightest flame that God is using to expose what has been hidden in darkness. Things that I have treasured, appetites I have fed, idols I have worshiped in the corners of my heart. And it's when they threaten trinkets that I have called precious, that my blood begins to boil.
When they will not cooperate with the rituals I maintain to serve my pride and my convenience and my comfort. When their wills refuse to bow at the alter of my demands.
It has been a humbling few weeks, walking with these sweet boys. Humbling and revealing.
Somethings take exactly a two-year-old and a four-year-old to reveal.
Asking for wave upon wave of grace to move through this season, to love my men well, to discipline with love and compassion and consistency.
Because they continue to show me the end of myself, and where they need so much more than what I posses, and where we all need Someone to redeem our brokenness, to quench our anger, to teach us the unforced rhythms of grace.
I trust no other source or name, nowhere else can I hide
This grace gives me fear, and this grace draws me near
And all that it asks it provides