So, the whole time I've been here, I've been talking about blogging about the many thoughts and issues that have come up with parenting in this place and season for me. I figured with less than a week less, perhaps I should actually start on that. There are a ton of different aspects of it that would make it an overwhelmingly long post to write or read, so I'll try to jump in on one thing for now: Control.
For any who know me well, I am a control freak in a long recovery and learning process! From the time I was a kid, I have been a pretty Type A, structured, black and white person who likes my lists and schedules and plans and structures. And, well, let's be honest, control. Even when I took the test from the Now, Discover Your Strengths book, one of my top 3 came back as Control (can't remember how that was framed as a strength exactly, but hopefully, I'll continue to let God redeem it as one). I make light of it sometimes, but it truly has been a challenge for me as an adult to release this.
There have been many seasons and layers of lessons in this arena. Becoming a parent has, without a doubt, been one of the biggest challenges to my "need" for control, as there is so much that is just not able to be controlled and that I have HAD to come face to face with needing to be in someone's control (God) who is far superior to me! So, parenting in general has been a huge challenge in this arena, but coming here to Nepal has taken it to a whole new level!
The first month here Isaiah had some sort of health issue pretty much the whole time. I was wrapping up my first trimester of pregnancy, so I was exhausted regardless of the circumstances. The travel didn't go especially easily getting here with Isaiah's sleep (or lack of), jet lag was rough and moved into a lot of pretty limited sleep nights because of all his health stuff. So, I was feeling completely depleted. And, here was my beloved little boy struggling with one physical malady after another. Now, I know kids get sick anywhere, but the possibilities of what it could be here are pretty scary, AND it was a brand new place where I didn't know how to take care of anything for him. There aren't any 24-hr pharmacies. It's hard to navigate communication and randomness at the pharmacies to even get what you want, and often it's not available here. I didn't even know how to clean stuff here when he was vomiting all over it in the middle of the night! There was no ability to even operate under any slight illusion that I had any control in it all! It was a horrible feeling that I really and truly wrestled through. I felt like I couldn't even figure out how to do the one thing I had set as my role during that time of coming--to take care of my son!
The thing about releasing control is that there is an assumption of it being released TO someone. It isn't like I had a choice to release control in this situation; it wasn't within my grasp. But, what felt perhaps the most difficult of all is that I couldn't see any control in it anywhere. I kept trying to tell myself that God was in control and praying for Him to take care of my little boy. I was trying really hard to trust that, but in the middle of the night one of the nights when Isaiah couldn't stop throwing up, and I was just completely at the end of myself, I have to be honest that I got angry. Really, really honest moment...I thought, God, I know that I need to trust that You are in control and that it never really has been within my control to take care of my son. I know I need to trust that He is and always has been in Your hands. Well, right now, you're doing a pretty crappy job! How am I supposed to feel good about that?! I'm completely at the end of myself, and I am mad that I don't see You here!
I had a pretty dramatic crying jag, followed by being so exhausted that I fell asleep for a bit. In the morning I was reminded of the story of Hagar and Ishmael. When I was younger, my Grandpa and Grandma had this old Bible-story book, and whenever I spent the night there, I got to choose a Bible story to read at breakfast. I always picked that story. I think I really loved the picture in that book for that story, and I can vividly remember it still. It's not a typical kid story to love, I suppose. I think there are a lot of reasons why God may have put that story on my heart as a kid, but one could be for my time as a mom. I turned to it in Genesis and read. Their circumstances were much different obviously. Ishmael was born as a result of Abraham and Sarah's disobedience, and then Hagar was sent away because of Sarah's jealousy. My son is a blessing and a joy, which actually made it seem all the more true that, if God would take care of Ishmael and Hagar, how much more certain that He would be there for my little boy?
In the story, their food and water runs out, they are completely alone, and they are in the desert. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but that is how I felt. I felt alone and completely stripped of any resources and powerless to do anything but watch my little boy hurting. Hagar went off to weep because she couldn't bear to watch her son die. Then, in Genesis 21:17, it says, "God heard the boy crying..." Even that simple phrase struck me. I didn't see action in the timing I wanted, and it made me feel like God wasn't even paying attention, but it was a reassurance of Him saying to me that He heard my boy crying, too. "...the angel of the God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.' Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink."
Now, I didn't have any wells or instant cures pop up in front of my eyes, but I felt a renewed strength to pick up my little boy and lift Him back up to his source of strength that actually WAS seeing and hearing. It wasn't all smooth from the moment on. Isaiah continued to have some rough stuff for awhile, and he has gotten sick pretty often during our time here. Sometimes I handle it better than others. But, God hears. He sees my little boy and cares for Him, and no matter how hard I want to fight to pretend I'm in control, this place has been a glaring reminder (often in dramatic ways) that I am absolutely NOT. And, I have to trust that God is. Sometimes I see it; sometimes I don't. Sometimes it works out quickly and smoothly, but it has been the most dramatic times when the breakthrough hasn't come right away that I have been stretched and broken and brought to the end of myself in ways that I have not been before. It sucks, let's be honest, but it is necessary. I can't say that I trust God to take care of my son or to be in control in His life if I'm, even subconsciously, still holding on as if his life or wellbeing is within my control. It's subtle at times when things are easy or get resolved quickly, but in those times of greater intensity, I realize how much I have operated as if I am the one running the show.
There is much theology wrapped up in a lot of this that I could go into at great depths, but I will say just briefly that I believe deep in my heart (though it is a tremendous challenge to cling to at times) that God is both completely good and loving and also in ultimate control. I praise Him that Isaiah, though it's been rough, is in no lasting danger, and I have gotten to see God's protection over Him, even if not in my timing. So, it may seem easy at this end of things to once again say that I believe God is in control, but it really did come in the middle of things being rough. It wasn't about me learning a lesson from it. Vineyard theology of the "already and not yet" kingdom of God has been incredibly freeing and amazing and challenging and challenging to me in the past couple of years. If anyone happens to read this and wants to dig into that more, I highly recommend Derek Morphew's book Breakthrough. I had actually read it before Isaiah was born, but as we all know, sometimes things we've learned go out the window when we are experiencing something hard! Anyway, I believe that there is a very real battle in the spiritual realm, and a blog for another day is the ways I have seen that so much more vividly here, but in the midst of the battle, even that seemingly simple affirmation that God hears shook me and released something in me. I don't get to control the way God is in control of things! I have seen all the more the need to battle for my son in prayer, but I have been stripped to a painfully good place from my illusions of control in his life. It's not all gone forever, but I pray that the Lord will keep me in that state of admitting my lack of control and relying on Him in the life of my family! May He make it something beautiful in my life and theirs!
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