Lent 3: Meditation

"Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God." Habakkuk 2:4 NLT
 
We are deep into the Lent season now, with Easter Sunday just two weeks away.  My Lent challenge is going well.  Not perfect, but well.  I find myself praying more, stepping away more, being that calm presence for my kids more.  It's interesting that when I decided not to boil over, it became easier to not even let the pot heat up.  I really challenged myself this past week, attempting to braid Girl's hair by myself instead of taking her to the nice lady who does them beautifully for $20.  You hold still while I practice this new skill...and Jesus save us both.

Jim Gaffigan has a great joke about the arrival of a fourth child; that it's like you're drowning, and then someone throws you a baby.  I thought I was ready to become a mom for the fourth time, but our experience was a little different.  It felt more like being capsized by the arrival of a three year old in respiratory distress who fought us trying to pull her to safety.  Unintentionally, I had assumed that a child who was *lucky* enough to be placed in our loving home would realize the lottery she had won and be so grateful that she immersed herself into our lives.  It was a stupid fantasy, and one that was quickly replaced by reality.  Real life is never quite as pretty as a movie.  Orphans aren't like Annie; they sometimes give all their love to the abusive caretaker and kick the person who reaches out to rescue them.

And so, during my time of meditation and reflection, I listened to a sermon from a church in Texas.  The message revolved around that passage from Habakkuk, about the difference between the proud and the righteous.  The people who seek God ALWAYS live by their faith in Him.  ALWAYS.  That means even when things are going poorly.  Even when life is so backwards or upside down that we think God must not even be aware of how screwed up it all is, that there couldn't possibly be a Master Plan at work, or else it wouldn't be this HARD.  Be faithful anyway.  All I could think of is our Girl, and how different these past few months have been from how I thought it would go.  How I wondered if this was really God's will for our family, for us to parent this child who has disrupted everything.  How each day I resolve to parent her anyway.  To do what is best for her, to care for her, to keep the long-term goals for her that we have in mind when dealing with the other kids.

We were having a bad day last week.  Sometimes this happens, and there's literally NOTHING I can do to make the kids turn it around.  All I can do is control how I respond.  Finally, the day ended (Thank you Lord), and I took Girl upstairs to get ready for bed.  As she pulled her covers up to her chin, I asked if we could pray together.  She nodded.  "Okay, I'll go first sweetie," I said.  I bowed my head and wrapped her little hands in mine, and I prayed.  I was honest.  I was real.  I prayed for myself to be a better mother, for our Girl to have good days when she listened and made the right decisions.  And then I prayed for her mom.  I asked God to Please Please help her get it together, so she could be a mother to her Girl again.  And a little voice whispered in the darkness, "Yes."  "We know you love her just as much as you love us, Lord," I continued.  And again, "Yes."  I don't know when the tears began, but as I said, "Amen," I realized my face was wet and they were falling on her comforter.  It was the most beautiful time of prayer I've experienced...maybe ever.  So is God in this moment, is God aware of what life is like for us right now?  Absolutely.  And he's asking us to be faithful.