Mothers of Sons

   I am mother to both a daughter and a son.  The relationship with each child is completely different.  Each one of my children bring something different to the table, and to my life.   My firstborn was a daughter.  We were thrilled to be having a little girl.   My only sibling is a sister so I figured I knew what was ahead with raising a girl.   During my second pregnancy, we found out that the baby was going to be a boy.  My emotions were mixed about this.  I was thrilled that we would have the best of both worlds with a daughter and a son, but at the same time I was scared, because I had no idea how to raise boys!  Boys are loud.  And dirty.  I was not use to loud and dirty.  Anyone who has ever been pregnant will tell you that with pregnancy comes much advice by others.   The one thing I heard people tell me over and over was that the relationship between a mother and son is like no other, and  I have found that to be very true!

   Not to long ago a friend stopped me and shared with me a story about her son.   He had been the butt of a cruel joke by his classmates.  She shared how hurt her son had been and knowing her son, the story caused me pain also.  It bothered me that this young man was so heartbroken, but what pained me even more, was how hurt this mother was for her son.  I thought about her all afternoon and prayed for her that evening.  Today I’m thinking about another mother who must have bore much pain watching her son.  I thought about Mary, the mother of Jesus.

   Mary was not very old when she found out she would be carrying the Messiah.  Not just a normal, loud, dirty boy,  no – THE MESSIAH!  Whoa, there’s a shocker for you.  She was probably somewhere between the ages of 13-15, she was unwed, she was poor and by all appearances, she did not look the part of the one to carry the Savior of the world.  God saw in Mary what others could not.  He saw a young woman who was full of faith.  I sometimes wonder what God saw in me when he decided he wanted me to raise a son.  Did he see someone he could trust to raise up a boy to become a strong Christian man, a Christian father, a Christian leader?  Am I doing the job God called me to do when he gave me a son?

   In the bible, once Mary gives birth to Jesus we don’t hear much about them until Jesus starts his ministry.  I can’t help but wonder what those years were like between his birth and his ministry.  Was Mary experiencing doubt that she would ever get him raised and out of the house?  Did she ever have to tell him to pick up his sandals and robe?  Did she teach him to pray or did he just know how?  Did she teach him compassion and generosity?  Did she cry when he fell and skinned his knees?  Did her heart break when he told her that one of his playmates was bullying him?  Did she become weak in the knees knowing what was to become of her beloved son?  How does a mother watch as her son is beaten, bad mouthed  and crucified?  I can’t begin to imagine the pain of that one mother!

   As a mother of a son, I have been entrusted with a huge responsibility.  It is my job as a mother to teach my son and provide him with the knowledge to become what God intends for him to be.  One day he will leave my home and I will have no more chances at teaching him.   When that day comes, will I know that I’ve done my job as a mother?  Will he know what a Godly woman looks like because of the example I put before him?  Will his faith grow because he saw mine grow?  I love my son.  When he laughs, my heart laughs louder and when he hurts, my heart hearts deeper.   So what gets us through when our heart hurts so incredibly bad for our son?  Just like Mary, I think it is our faith.  My son, like hers, belonged to God before he belonged to me.  He is a gift from God that I will only have for a certain amount of time.  I have to keep the faith that the work God started in him, He will see through.  I have to keep the faith that God is in control of Michael’s life and I am not.  He knows Michael’s pains and sorrows and He will use them to His glory.  My days as a mother to Michael are numbered and I must use my days wisely and prayerfully. 

   I wonder if Mary knew all the things Jesus would do as a man?  Did she know he would heal the sick, raise the dead and give sight to a blind man?  I have no idea what Michael will do as a man.  I pray daily for him and for myself as I mother this boy, this gift.  And please don’t misunderstand and think Mike doesn’t play a HUGE roll in parenting both Michael and Abbie, but I’m talking specifically from a mom’s point of view here.   I pray that God shows me how to teach Michael and how to lead him from a mothers stand point.  Michael will leave me one day and his decisions will be his own.  It was never my job to control who or what he becomes.  My job was to mother him, love him and pray him through.

My Gift.

    Mary’s life was very different from mine but the one thing I share with Mary is that we are both the mother’s of sons.   A special gift and one I’m honored that God gave me.  I’ve messed up with Michael more than once and I’m sure I will miss the boat again at some point, but as a Christian mom I know who’s got my back!  I find great comfort in knowing that when I drop the ball, God’s grace covers me, and Michael.  Michael is no Messiah, not even an angel most days, but he’s mine even if it is for a short period of time.  Here’s to praying that I get it right!  :)

The Elf

   I have a friend.  I believe she may be an elf.  Now, I’m not completely sure that elves do in fact exist, but if they do, then I know one.  This is what I know about her and this is what I know about elves.  1. Elves rarely sleep.  That’s why Santa’s winter wonderland is so beautifully decorated.  L rarely sleeps either.  I know this because her own version of “Santa’s winter wonderland” is so beautifully decorated.  That, and I’ve gotten texts from her as late at 11 pm and as early as 5 am.  Elves aren’t quick to catch on to things like the fact that “big” people do sleep.   2.  She likes to bake cookies.  So do those little Keebler guys.  I’m pretty sure there is a tree house in her back yard and it probably has an oven in it.  And 3.  Elves are tiny little people.  Tiny, tiny people.  L is abnormally tiny for an adult woman.  She has tiny little clothes and tiny little shoes. I think I saw a pair in her closet that were pointed.  Dead give away.

   L has a gift.  She can take something plain and dull and turn it into something beautiful.  And here in lies the story of my Christmas tree.  We all have our gifts and I know what mine are.  I also know what they aren’t.  I do not have the gift of tree trimming.  Part of the problem started many years ago with all those Norman Rockwell pictures.  You know the ones.  Those pictures painted unrealistic ideas in my head that over the years have ld to tree trimming disappointment.  Here’s how I thought things would go down…… Unrealistic - Mike, the kids and I would bundle up and go out in search of the perfect tree, chop it down and bring it home.  Reality – Mike and I drive to Lowes, I try to get him to act as if we are searching for the perfect tree (in the parking lot), I give up and say, “just grab one.”  Unrealistic – The four of us sing Christmas carols in the car as we drive home with the perfect tree.  Reality – The kids aren’t even with us, Mike is on a conference call and I just keep dreading getting all those decorations out of the attic when we get home.  Unrealistic – Mike and Michael get the tree up and the decorations out of the attic while Abbie and I prepare hot cocoa and warm cookies.  Reality – Mike and Michael put the tree up quickly so they can watch the ball game.  The whole time trying to convince me the tree is straight.  Ok, so you get the picture.  Not the Norman Rockwell picture, but the reality picture.  Every year I end up decorating the tree by myself, and that would be ok if I enjoyed it, but I do not.  So this year, I decided things would be different.  I bought an artificial tree, some new decorations, new ribbon (all based on the advice of L) and began my project of tree trimming, and all with my new Christmas cheer attitude.  I strung lights, and more lights.  I hung ornaments.  I even put these little stick things throughout the tree, just like on L’s trees.  I stepped back to admire my handiwork.  Whoa, Nellie. What the heck are all those sticks sticking out of the tree?  And how come all the red balls are on one side and the green ones on the other?  And is that tree straight?  It was time to admit defeat and call in an expert.  So this morning L came over and “fixed” my plain, dull tree.  You should see it now.  It is BEAUTIFUL!!!  And then she “fixed” my mantle (although sadly I didn’t even realize it looked bad).  BEAU-TI-FUL I tell you.  Beautiful!

   Today as L and I were talking I was commenting about what an amazing gift God had given her.  My beautiful tree and mantle are bringing me joy.  Through L’s gift, I am blessed.  She laughingly said how her family probably wished she had my gift of cooking so there would be dinner on the table instead of a decorated tree.  As we laughed and joked about our “talents” it reminded me of something a friend said to me recently that really struck a chord with me.  He and his wife were at our house eating dinner.   He said something about the meal and I jokingly said that I wished God had given me the talent of being able to do brain surgery or something big like that but instead I got the talent of cooking.   As we laughed, my friend said, “You know Pam, if you had the talent of being a fabulous brain surgeon, that would not have blessed me one single bit, but your food has blessed me and my family many, many times.”  I can’t tell you how many times I have thought about what he said that evening.  We all have some gift or talent that God has blessed us with. Some are “big” and some are seemingly small.  Some require many years of education and studying and some just come natural.  But it doesn’t matter to God what you are good at, it matters to God how you use what he gave you.  So L and I decided this morning to be grateful for our small, simple talents and be proud of the fact that those were the ones God designed for each of us to use to bring joy to others and glory to Him. I think Erma Bombeck said it best when she said, ”When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me.”  My friends, use what God gave you.  It’s a gift.  You never know what kind of joy you may bring to others by sharing your talents with them. 

Free Parking

   I ought to get free parking at the hospital.  The exit gate should have an “out of pocket maximum” and when you reach it, you don’t have to pay $2 any more to get out of the parking deck.  If they did, I’m sure by now I’d have free parking. 

   Last Sunday we were going to have family pictures made.  The thing I hate about family pictures is that it stresses me out to figure out the whole clothing thing.  Do we all four wear the same color or do we coordinate?  How far ahead of the photo shoot do I get my haircut and colored?  Glasses or no glasses.  Boots or heels?  Oh my goodness, no wonder you can’t find any family pictures of us in this house!  Well, we do have the family picture from last year, which is very special to me.  It was taken a couple weeks after Mike’s stem cell transplant.  He had lost all his hair from the chemo so in support of him, we all four wore do-rags for our pictures.  It was fun and I will always cherish those pictures.  That is part of the reason I wanted pictures again this year, just to have a visual of what a difference a year can make.  So, back to the photo shoot.  We were having our pictures done at 4:30 and our small group would be over at 6:00 for Bible study.  It was about 4:00 and we were almost all ready to go.  I was helping Abbie finish her makeup and then we’d be ready, coordinating outfits and all!  As Abbie and I were playing in my makeup Mike came in the bathroom and said that his back was hurting.  Within minutes he came back in and told me he thought he had a kidney stone and I was going to have to take him to the ER.  He has had kidney stones before so he knew the symptoms; he just had not had one since cancer.  Like any good wife I dropped everything I was doing and rushed to take care of my guy.  Ok, actually I looked at my watch and wondered if we could just run by quickly and get our pictures made and then go to the emergency room.   Hey, don’t judge, I had spent a lot of time on the whole outfit thing.  Plus I had showered again and re-done my make up and hair!  I could tell by Mike’s level of pain the picture thing was not going to happen so I put down the make up brushes and off we went to the ER. 

   We got to the hospital (a very familiar site for me) and fortunately the ER was not crowded yet.  They got Mike back to a room fairly quick and got him some pain meds.  Well it seemed quick to me, he would probably tell you differently.  If you followed my journal on caring bridge back during Mike’s cancer days you will remember me talking about my prayer posse or my prayer ninja’s that I later named them.  Well I had texted my ninjas when I was in the waiting room and told them what was going on and of course, those women were johnny on the spot with the prayers.  I just love those women!  What a blessing to have a small group of friends that will pray the minute they get the word that something is going on!  Meanwhile back at the ranch, I mean ER, they were wheeling Mike off to have some X-rays and a CT Scan to verify that it was indeed a kidney stone.  After many games of Sudoku and Words with Friends, Mike joined me back in the room and in no pain at all (thanks to the wonders of modern medicine).  What seemed like hours later, the doctor came in and said that Mike did have a kidney stone but in addition to the stone they found an aneurysm on his splenic artery.  WHAT???  I’m sorry doc but we just came here for kidney stones.  He was very honest with us and said he didn’t know anything about the aneurysm so before he could release Mike he wanted to talk to a surgeon.  When the doctor left, Mike and I just looked at each other.  Not really surprised.  Not really scared.  I think it was just more a look of, “well of course they found an aneurysm.”  Almost everyday I am amazed at what God has taught us in the last year and a half.  Two years ago, the word aneurysm would have FREAKED me out!  Two years ago I assure you I would not have been looking at Mike and the doctor going, “ok.”  But today is different than two years ago (thank you Jesus!).  Today not much surprises me.  Today I am confident that God is most definitely in control.  Today I find peace in my prayers and those of my prayer ninja’s.  Today is all I really have, and it is enough.  So back to Mike.  The surgeon says that the aneurysm has begun to calcify so he feels confident in releasing Mike to go home but wants him to follow up the next day at his office.  We go home.  Did I mention that we were the best-dressed couple in the ER that night with our coordinating outfits, my hair all fixed and make up freshly applied? We looked good.  Maybe I should have had Melanie come there to take our family pictures!

   So last Monday Mike followed up with two of his surgeon buddies.  They both agreed that based on the size of the aneurysm, where it was located and the fact that it had started to calcify, there was not a risk of it rupturing.  They said the biggest factor in it not rupturing is the fact that Mike will not become pregnant (apparently a concern among women with the same diagnosis).  Whew, one less concern.  They will recheck him in a few months to see how things look.  So these are the things God taught me (or reminded me) last Sunday night:

      1.     Faith is continual.  Faith just during the easy times is “selective faith”, which is really not faith at all.

      2.    A group of praying friends is a blessing beyond what words can describe.  I hope I’m that kind of blessing to others.

      3.    God is funny.  And He is good.  I’m glad I know Him.

      4.    There is no place for worry AND faith in my life.  It’s one or the other.  I choose faith.

      5.    Once again, mother was right.  Always have on clean underwear with no holes in it         because you never know when you might end up in the hospital.  Actually, I’m not really    sure about that one since no one saw my underwear but it might not be a bad thing to live    by. 

            So one day maybe I will get free parking at the hospital, but I hope it is not because I spend so much time there.  Maybe they will award Mike and me free parking because we wear coordinating outfits to the emergency room.  And clean, non-holey underwear.