If I listen really hard, I can faintly hear my eight year old daughter singing in her bed. This is precious. Never mind that it’s over two hours since I put her to bed, it’s still precious. She is the most staying-up kid I’ve ever known. She reads like a fiend and I cannot blame her for it, because I do, too.
But these lyrics of hers—let me share them:
Don’t give up
Don’t give up
Don’t give up on all your dreams;
If you want them
Then they want you
So don’t give up on all your dreams
Welp. I am a little leveled. I will never get over how my kids make me incredibly frustrated at times and also flood my life with oceans of meaning—both, at once. (Actually, perhaps this is a phenomenon we experience with all humans in general?)
Anyway, there you go. Don’t give up on all your dreams. Unless they’re terrible, I guess. Like, if your dream is to get rid of books or breed dogs out of wagging their tails or, I don’t know, convince the world that dancing is no longer necessary and songs are superfluous then, please, get better dreams.
Speaking of daughters, I brought the two little ones to the grocery store today. They begged to use the mini shopping carts that have shopper in training written on them. We all know that’s a scam, because how many of us had no training at all before we were let loose with carts of our own, narrowly avoiding toppling the tower of avocados in the middle of the produce section and we did just fine? Actually, considering how I literally knocked over an entire display of chocolate snowmen with my cart last week, I probably could have used some training, but whatever.
I suspect that the same people who had the terrible idea of placing the majority of the candy, balloons, and unnecessary juices and snacks in the checkout aisle—exactly where you are stuck doing the dreaded deed of simply waiting with your kiddos and their raging desires stoked aflame by all the shiny temptations a grocery store has to offer—also decided to offer up the mini toddler-sized shopping carts, too. Have I mentioned the most dangerous, impulsive demographic of humans in the world are people between the ages of three and four? So sure, yeah, give them their own shopping carts and let them go wild.
These grocery store people do not have parents in mind. They are not setting us up for success. If there was a political candidate whose platform ran on disabusing the world of bedtimes, these marketing geniuses would get behind it. If the same political candidate proposed ending cut off times to long, laborious rides on a swing in which your child is screaming to push them higher and you are giving it your ALL and the second your all flags and you push with just one half of a percent less than 110% of your energy, they know it and they scream and cry for you to push them yet HIGHER—well, these grocery store anti-parent, mini-cart pushing, lining-the-checkout-with-candy people’s votes would be locked in.
These grocery store marketers are trying to extort money from parents who are simply trying to buy a little peace. Literally buy. As in $1.99 for a kinder egg because it’s in the aisle you are waiting in and your kid sees it right in front of them and now they desperately want it and you’re not sure what is better (or maybe worse?)—handing over your phone so it can act as a pacifier and being *that* parent or buying them an overpriced piece of candy, which is another kind of pacifier.
Once I was talking to a nutritionist who works with families and she said it’s really the parents to blame for people’s terrible eating habits because parents just want their kids to shut up so they hand over some kind of processed, sugary treat to get them through the moment and I was nodding in consternation, like, What terrible parents! Who would do such a thing?! And then I remembered this nutritionist does not have kids and the truth is, I know exactly who would do such a thing and maybe it’s not all parents, but it’s certainly this parent (hi, between both Willa and Noa, we were in four candy canes deep at a certain Christmas program we recently had to attend. My husband TJ looked at me like I was handing them cocaine—especially when I gave them each a second one—but I am all ears for better ideas on how to keep a three and four year old quiet and enthralled while watching a program that was even hard to sit through for an adult who’s all caught up on social mores. Let’s try it with virtuous carrot sticks next time and see what happens).
Anyway, the grocery store is not for us, per se. They are for making money and they have no problem holding us hostage with our own tantrumming children to do it.
Back to the little baby shopping carts that I decided would be just fine, so let’s just go for it, girls! FUN MOMS, UNITE! Suddenly, two girls who are used to being strapped into a shopping cart with only an appearance of autonomy because the cart has two steering wheels and they pitifully think they are driving it (lol), now have full autonomy behind the wheels of two respective shopping carts. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, Noa (3) didn’t have as much control over her cart as Willa (4) did. That year and a half Willa has over Noa really shows when you add wheels. And so, Noa accidentally rammed into the back of Willa more than once. And Willa is not known for her self-control. Give her some more time, I’m sure she’ll get there, but probably not before she’s five. Finally, it happened one too many times and the Cold War between Russia and the States was over in the dairy section. The mounting tension broke as Willa wound up and rammed into the backs of Noa’s legs as hard as she could and just like that it was a hot war.
Noa doubled over and started screaming. There were so many people in the crowded aisle witnessing this battle, and I had to maneuver Willa’s cart away from her little body as I angrily picked her up and plopped her right onto some raw chicken in my own full cart. By now Willa was also screaming as I quietly explained that she has lost the privilege of driving her own shopping cart. Noa was still screaming in pain, and so I picked her up, too, and placed her in the basket of my cart, telling her I’m sorry she’s hurt. Everyone was staring. I left their abandoned carts pushed to the side and kept moving. It’s winter now and I was bundled up and under all my wraps and my picking up kids and my scooting tiny carts over so people behind me don’t hit them and the general humiliation of my kids causing mayhem, I felt really hot. Like meltingly so.
This is when I caught the eyes of one woman. She was watching us and smiling. It was a genuine smile mixed with compassion and a little bit of mirth tugging at the corners of her lips. She portrayed zero shock. It was the face you might make while watching the end of Titanic. You know a little history, you know the boat goes down. Plus you’ve seen the movie already by now. It’s sad, but you’re not at all surprised by what plays out. This woman was clearly in familiar territory, watching our scene unfold.
When everyone else in the dairy aisle was trying their best to politely ignore the free entertainment, this woman took a step toward us. She reached out her hand and touched my shoulder. I looked at her squarely and she was still smiling. “It gets better” she said gently, “Promise.” Suddenly, I wasn’t only angry anymore. Something in her kind words, her encouragement, her soft touch and voice broke me. I blinked back tears and nodded. I know it gets better. I know a lot of moments already are better. I know I am so rich to be their mama. And also, those chaotic moments can unseat my peace, make me feel thrown. It helps to remember all the moments we have are fleeting. The hard ones, the good ones. The better ones that come all the time. It helps to remember to hold the good ones close, put them deep in my pockets to take out and examine later, when I have a moment of introspection.
Swiss theologian Karl Barth said, “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” Maybe I won’t remember the long list of things for which I am (and should) be grateful for. Maybe the words fail me. But I can listen to my daughters laughing by themselves, hear the words passing between these humans I can remember having no words at all at one point (surely this wasn’t very long ago?), and I can memorize the sounds and the shape of them. I can let it create deep grooves in my brain, the footprints left by joy.
I can stop being misled by the myth of arrival. No longer dragged around by the tantalizing thought that finally things will be better when my home is organized, when my abs resemble what they looked like a few babies ago, when my relationship is this, my career that, when when when. American Philosopher Dallas Willard wrote, God is yet to bless anybody anywhere other than where they actually are. Not where we’d like to be, not where we will be if finally given enough time, resources, peace, etc.
Where we actually are.
Look around.
This is where God comes to bless us.
Right here in my messy living room with my dirty bangs laying heavy on my forehead (that I don’t regret, by the way. I recently cut bangs and someone asked me on social media if I will regret them. But at this point, I have lived too much to spend my heart on regretting bangs. Plus, when I get that restless need for change, I just cut my bangs a little shorter. It’s much more cost effective than a vacation). God blesses me in the dairy aisle with my kids screaming and my own heart seething under too many clothes. This is when a woman stops, breaks the moment with a touch, a word, an encouragement, a blessing.
There is a story in the Gospel of Mark that says, Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, [Jesus] gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to His disciples to distribute to the people…They all ate and were satisfied…
Author Walter Brueggemann sums up this story, describing how Jesus took, He blessed, He broke, He gave. He does these things over and over again in our lives. He takes ordinary life, its scarcity, our own lackluster existence—and He takes, He blesses, He breaks, He gives. And like that story, we find that we have more than enough. We find that we are satisfied. We find that joy comes again. We dare to glimpse deep within and we are shocked to find gratitude growing in places we were sure could only gather dust.
A dear friend who I’ve known a long time reached out today. She asked if we could make time to talk, she wanted to give me a life update. Perhaps my faith is too small, but I read her text and my heart sank. Life updates can be awful and I hoped she was okay. I called her right then and listened as she described the shape of her heart, broken in half, pieces on the floor, a story no mother dreams for her daughter.
But then she described grace. Friends who are there. A community that holds her close. A bit of freedom she can glimpse because now she knows the truth and surely there is some solid ground in that. She spoke with faith and conviction, saying that God has put her exactly where she is because it is here where she needs to heal. She started sharing new dreams for her life. New dreams, right on top of the dead ones she is still burying and grieving.
We are miracles of resilience, utterly ridiculous blooms that rear our pretty faces right out from hot city sidewalks. We find a crack and we decide to grow, to thrive, to die trying anyway. We don’t wait for fertile ground, we look around and think, This is it; it has to be. We watch God take, bless, break, give. We watch Him do this with our own hearts, our own precious stories, and we find that we are satisfied, fed, sleeping well at night. Waking up again to a day untouched and we dare to fill it with a little bit of hope.
It is a wonder to be exactly where we are and nowhere else, to see that it is here and only here where God blesses us. Where He masterfully takes, breaks, gives, and yes, blesses.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, one of the world’s most famous and gifted psychiatrists and founder of logotherapy--as well as a survivor of Auschwitz—writes in his book Man’s Search for Meaning:
“…Public opinion pollsters recently reported that those held in highest esteem by most of the people interviewed are neither the great artists nor the great scientists, neither the great statesmen nor the great sports figures, but those who master a hard lot with their heads held high.”
Moment after moment presents an opportunity. To be here and nowhere else. To watch as God takes, breaks, blesses and gives. To trust that we will be satisfied; and not just us, but the crowds around us. To let joy overtake us when it comes. To close our eyes, let laughter carry our breath back to the trees like a boomerang; let joy confuse us, make us revisit that decision we made in the middle of the night that life is only hard, because maybe it’s also good and rich and interesting and worthy of our attention, our presence, our gratitude, our waking again today, right here, ready to cut our bangs and not regret it for even a moment.
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Beautiful words, as always, Jess. Great way to start the new year. Happy New Year to you guys! 🎉