Making The Repair.
I’m hoping and praying as you read this you’ve had a moment with Jesus to slow down after the mama melt down. You’ve experienced his mercy and his grace, his tender voice saying “I’m right here, I’ve got you, I know how hard it is to be a mother. I never intended for you to do it alone.” I pray He’s helping you make sense of your stories and where the part of you that melts down began, likely so long ago.
For me, even now as a grandmother of 5, the part of me that melts down often feels inadequate, protected by my manager that attempts to control things. Even when one of my adult children is struggling, or one of my grandchildren is melting down, my instinct is to exert control, fix things. Any of you relate?
If I’m honest, their distress distresses me. How in the world can we hold space for their distress if we can’t hold space for our own. My healing journey began when I met Jesus. I was 33 and had a 16-month-old, an almost 3-year-old, and a 5-year-old. My life was so very complicated. I’d spent all of my life running from my own distress. How could I possible hold space for my children’s distress.
I’m 63 now and have learned how to hold space for my own distress and the distress of others, yet I’m still learning with my own family. Something happens inside of us when our children are in distress, a sense of responsibility. They are depending on us to help them. What helps them most, what they really need from us is our presence. They need us to be with them in their distress, not fix them. This is one of the most significant things I wish I would have known when my children were young; how to hold space for them in their distress, witnessing, reflecting, validating what they were experiencing, helping them discover the incredible resiliency that lives inside them, resiliency that is only realized in distress. Life is filled with distress. Helping them discover the resiliency and wisdom that lives inside them happens when we can hold space with them in their distress. This helps them learn to slow down and listen to their inside. This is the place we hope and pray Jesus will one day take residency. In these messy moments we are helping them learn to listen to that still small voice.
So now, Jesus has begun to help us make more sense of our stories. For me, it’s understanding where the controlling part that needs to fix things comes from. My connection with Him has been restored. My heart is settled. These are moments not to be fought against, believing the lie we’ve failed Jesus, but to hear his voice calling us into a moment of knowing him more, experiencing him, embracing these beautiful opportunities of profound transformation. These are moments we take comfort in the arms of Jesus, once again being reconciled to him through his unending mercy and his lavish grace. We are experiencing attachment repair with him; healing that transforms more and more into his likeness.
I’m ready to go to my child (or grandchild, or husband) and make the repair in our relationship. The most important part is that they know, without question, they are not responsible for my big feelings. We are all responsible to tend to our own emotions. This is something we model for them by example when we make repairs. It might sound something like, “when that happened, I got really upset. First you need to know you are never responsible for my big feelings. I am. Will you please forgive me for yelling. I spent time with Jesus, asking him to forgive me and help me understand why I got so upset. He’s helping me.” Keeping a short account like this with ourselves and those we love helps create rich, secure connections built on trust, experiencing consistency in reconciliation.
Humbly living the gospel of reconciliation out loud, allowing others to see, Jesus becomes visible, desirable, reachable, and knowable to our children and those around us. Truly, these are some of the messiest, most painful, humbling moments of our existence, but they are also some of the best of moments, producing eternal fruit. In these moments of tender repairs rivers of living water pour forth from us (John 7:38) into a world that is parched, a world that drinks from wells they must go back to over and over again.
Faithfulness as a mother is not perfection. Faithfulness is getting to know Jesus more and more through experience, continuing in our pursuit of living a rhythm of transformation.