Twenty Years In

I remember decades ago I made decisions that concerned Sippy cups and cloth diapers.  I baked birthday cakes without sugar and provided consistent naps and snacks for small but growing bodies.  We worked on proper speech and potty training and expanding boundaries juxtaposed with potentially lifesaving obedience (“cheerfully and quickly”).  And I was confirmed in our efforts by the praise received in supermarkets (“one hand at all times on the side of the cart – one of you at each corner”), restaurants, church…everywhere we went. Somewhere in the muddle of manners and good behavior I forgot to deepen my acquaintance with the individuals my children were rapidly becoming.  If I had the strength I would regret those days in which I expended so much on the externals.  Did a pacifier really make him an inferior child or me an incompetent mother?  Really?!  These days the standards are so much less obvious than the days of capitulating in guilt to episodes of Sesame Street “…just for the times that I am nursing or trying to get supper on the table.”   Life in our family is messy as templates are rejected, molds are discarded and personalities become more dominant than house rules.  Ahead of me lies the ultimate Gordian knot:  will I remain entangled in pursuit of an ideal model or will I decisively cut through and know and love the people my children have been growing into since they were born?  Each day I pray for the strength and wisdom to consciously choose the substance over the form; more and more the former seems the reality of living as a disciple of Christ.  Like their parents, these human beings that spent their earliest days within our family are a cacophony of strength and weakness, passion and apathy, triumph and failure, faith and unbelief.  Unlike me, they are confident in their freedom to make choices, and I cannot even catch a glimpse of what their lives could look like over the next five, ten and twenty years.
In weak moments I would trade them for Playmobil figures – it would be more comfortable.  I could set them up in their perfect carved environment equipped with the appropriate accessories.  They would not risk anything, or become damaged with pieces broken off and faces scarred.  They would never slam hard against the bottom, or sob from a broken heart or rebel or question…or lead me to lie in the darkness before a new day pleading with God for their safety and preservation. They would never embarrass me with their shabbiness of conduct.  In exchange, I would not have years to become acquainted with these brilliantly faceted human beings with whom I share a wee bit of genetic code, or see the triumph of growth and learning as they explore their free will.  I would miss the humbling times in which they point to the illuminating treasure revealed through the crevices of their earthen vessels.  Play figures are always to be found where you left them – never changing or growing.  But in that ideal playroom of carefully controlled options and outcomes I would never have these sharply joy-filled moments of looking around to see that they have all paused by choice at the same time in my general vicinity…. as they occasionally do on these summer days where Sippy cups and diapers are vocabulary words from another lifetime.