Berries

Sometimes I can try so hard to accomplish a task that I can get in my own way.  I see housework that needs to be done, so I make a list.  I can spend three hours making a list of the chores that need to be done and then leave myself too little time to complete a quarter of them.  I am often my own worst obstacle because I fail to recognize that which is eluding me.

One thing I enjoy about summertime is picking time with the kids.  We have blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes.  I have tried and been unsuccessful with strawberries.  For the last several years, I have wanted to get blackberry bushes as well, but haven't had the opportunity to buy, plant, and care for them. 

We have had plenty of outside work to do besides working on cultivating a new plant.  There are tons of weeds popping up everywhere.  Poison ivy creeps in along the ground with runners making their way up trees.  Brambles with long, painful thorns crop up near the trees.  This can be an arduous task.

About a week and a half ago, I was outside doing some clearing and pruning by the blueberry bushes that had grown too high and thrust out branches so far I couldn't get to the berries above nor to the weeds underneath.  As much as I relish the taste of fresh blueberries, I haven't been able to pick any due to the fact that they had grown to be about 12 feet high.  I couldn't reach the ripe fruit.  The birds have been able to feast on them, but I was determined that my family will as well.

In the middle of all the pruning and weed whacking, I kept coming across this little bramble with odd-shaped leaves and thorns.  This thing had popped up everywhere!  It was under my blueberries, in the middle of my yard with the grass, and on the opposite side of my house next to the hibiscus.  It seemed like an infestation.

My mom has developed quite a green thumb, so I showed her this pest and asked her what it was and how to get rid of it.   She took one look at it and gave me the name of this unwelcome intruder.  Blackberry.  The very same plant I have been considering buying is the very one I was trying to evict from my yard.

If I had continued under my own wisdom, I would have lost the treasure that I have longed for, that was right under my nose this whole time.  I would have cut it all down,lost it of my own volition, and I would have had to wait even longer for my blackberries. 

Sometimes it takes a little external guidance to reap what I would like to sow.  Sometimes I miss out because I do not have a clear picture of what is as opposed to how I think it should be.  When I stop and trust the expert of my soul, who knows how I am knit together and recognizes me, who sees all the thorns and yet lovingly works to cultivate me, I will be able to bear the fruit that He desires of me.

Sometimes I need to just trust the caretaker of my soul to do what He needs to do so I can be fully productive in this life.  Sometimes I need pruning in order to keep me from wearing myself out trying to reach the sun.  I need that extra help to keep me  where I need to be in order to be able to flower as I was meant to blossom.

The Nitty Gritty

Life has a habit of going on, whether you do something about it or not.  You can't control the waves in the ocean or the pollen in the air, nor can you keep your little ones from growing up and learning about the joys and pains of this existence.  It's not that you want things to happen, but as you get caught up in the mundane and the wild rides, things don't always turn out the way you planned.  But what do you do when that happens?

Here's the low down.  My kids are all growing up.  You may remember my Three Amigos, aka the Three Musketeers, but they have grown, not only in age, but in number.  My oldest is now 15 and writing her own book, journal entries of Ahsoka Tano.  Yes, my daughter has the Star Wars genes and loves this character so much that she is writing her entire life story.  Her brother in arms will be 14 on Monday.  He is, most of the time, our gentle giant.  At 6 feet and 250 pounds, he is almost twice my size but just as much a teddy bear as his father.  The last third of this troupe is now 12 and loves Legos and Minecraft.  I never hear him laughing so much as when he is watching a Minecraft video.

Added to the fold are two more.  My 9 year old Punkyanna, as my husband calls her, is a cross between Punky Brewster (remember her?) and Anna from Frozen.  She is quite feisty and is as much a princess as her sister is a tomboy.  Completing the handful is my 5 year old, precocious, and a voracious reader.  He will read anything he can get his hands on, from a child's book to a newspaper.

My quiver full keeps me on my toes most of the time.  All are very active, inquisitive, and part of this wonderful unit called a family.  They all have their roles, their unique personalities with strengths and weaknesses, all dearly precious to me.  Truly, they can wear me out at times, but they are filled with such wonder and insatiable curiosity.  All except my spitfire princess also have High Functioning Autism, which brings its own challenges to the table.

Just this past Monday, my husband and I had to do something no parent enjoys.   We had to make some tough choices regarding Mr. Man.  See, here's the deal:  most of the time, he is as sweet as can be.  He has a sparkle to his smile that just lights up the room.  But when he is down on himself, it is as if the shadows come out to play.  He gets dark and hard on himself.  He gets frustrated and has been known to knock holes in walls, doors off their frames, and to verbalize feelings of self-harm.  We have tried him on different medications to stabilize his moods, but he doesn't respond well to many of them.  It came to a head this last week.

We had to take him to get an emergent psychiatric evaluation.  We answered questions, and so did he, regarding his well-being and intentions toward himself.  He has never been intentionally aggressive towards others, though he has been known to fight when he feels backed into a corner.  He has, however, always been very hard on himself.  He gets so engrossed on what he may have done wrong that he hasn't grasped how great our love is for him.  He gets to feeling hopeless and....we had to leave him there for observation.

This has probably been the longest week of my life.  On top of his issues, I had to go to a few different doctors for my own health.  Evidently, my body thinks I am going too hard and is insisting on enough being enough.  Honestly, I have crashed a couple times for a quick nap and it has been intense emotionally.  But as a mother, when I have a child in crisis and four other children depending on me, some of whom have no understanding of what is going on, I can't exactly just stop.  Life keeps going, regardless of the circumstances.

At first, he was very resistant to talking about things with them.  Then he realized that the only way to come home is to face his fears and confront his challenges head on.  He decided he is willing to do what it takes to be able to come home.  One of the amazing things about him has always been that he is perfectly honest with us.  There is no guile or deceit in him, so we are grateful that when he says how he is feeling, he is being forthright.  Now he is talking and feeling better about things and learning how to cope with all his emotions.  Just being a teenager is hard enough in this day and age, but my son is beginning to rise above it all.  He is starting to refuse the lies that come at him.

It isn't about what happens, but about the choices we make when it does.  When we are sitting in that boat in the middle of a tempest, do we yell out and jump overboard or do we take the storm by the horns and set our jaw for the big waves?  We have to look past what we see to the truth of what is.  The storms will pass.  They all do.  The weather sometimes holds for a while, but the calm will also come, with the soft, gentle wind and the sun will shine once again.

I wrote a poem on Wednesday, and I would like to share it with you.  Please note it is gritty, as it holds a myriad of this weeks' emotions laid bare:

Battle of the Mind

Why did you lock me up?
This place is like a bunker, a prison cell.
I want to escape
But you tell me I can't, that I'm not well.
I don't understand
I have always been this way, can't you tell?
The thoughts have always been there, they never leave
Torturous, taunting, haunting me,
Whispering that I belong in hell

You pray and you talk and you say I am loved
But somehow, despite what you say,
I don't feel any of this

You say God delivers and brings us to our good, but I can't hear.
I can't see, I can't speak
I just sit here wallowing in my fear
That voice continues, whispering in my ear
Yet you say God is near.

I hope.  Can I?  Dare I? Believe despite what I feel bubbling up inside?
My tears are dry as I try desperately to hide
From the pain down deep I cannot escape
The chasm is just too wide.

There is only one way, the voices say,
To exterminate the anguish I have today
End it here and now, and nobody else has to suffer in the mire of my misery
What am I but a drop in humanity
It doesn't matter in the grand scheme, can't you see?
Yet you say you keep me in this jail to set me free.

Please let me come home.  I wouldn't hurt you
It's myself that I want to kill
I dream and I scheme and it makes me ill
That you don't understand this is my will

How can my absence bring you more pain?
Surely you don't want to deal with my outbursts again
Your tears fall fast, like the summer rain
While my mind keeps chugging along on this train

You say group therapy is where I need to be
And you say to go down on my knee,
that Jesus' love will comfort me
in the midst of this, my tragedy.

I don't trust and I don't want to feel
for this pain inside is just too surreal.
I want to come home, so what's the big deal?

Surrender the heart when I'm falling apart
Open my soul and that's the start
Well here you go, it's sitting right there
Laid open bare, wounded everywhere

I mess up all the time, you know that it's true
Just what do you want me to do?
Overwhelmed by it all, I just want to fall,
I hear your love call,
But a failure I feel and it hurts that you have to live
with the destruction of my pain.  What have I to give?

You couldn't have known, you didn't see
Just what those boys did to me
Opened my eyes when I wished I was blind
So I couldn't see what they were showing me
Wish I could leave it all behind

Oh God, how it hurt, offended my spirit
I tried to go deaf so I wouldn't have to hear it
Please pry out my eyes and puncture my ears,
so badly my heart it did sear.

You tell me I have to move on,
that I am your son
But it ain't so fun and I just want to run
But oh, how I want to come home, to not feel alone
I'm tired of wandering.  I don't want to roam

Letting go isn't easy to do but it's true
I want to trust you will come back for me
when this part of my journey is through

So I cry out, I scream and I shout
From the depths of my soul I still doubt,
Nevertheless, God's Word says He hears,
that faith is what it's all about

Oh Jesus, I cry, shut out the noise that swallows me up
LORD, fill my cup.  Sit with me and sup.
I want to hear you

You want me to tell what's troubling me
but You already know
It's hard for me to put it in words
Where do I begin to let it out?

Honesty is the best policy,
I have that on good authority
It leads to the path of tranquility

Well here I am, LORD, Do what You will
Empty me out then fill me back up
Heal my brokenness,
replace it with Your Holiness
Show me Your faithfulness and make me brand new,
Wholly, completely devoted to You

You hold the key to the prison in my mind
Release me, for I am resigned
That this fear will no longer bind  my soul

And when I am ready, I'll walk out these doors
And walk outside on the soft, grassy floors
Remembering that Your Spirit pours
over my life both day and night,
and that I never have to fight alone

For You are with me, You love me
You purposed for me to be
And I will hold tight to the truth that
You crafted my mind to work differently
Creatively
Joyfully delighting in Who You are in me,
and in the wonderful knowledge
that You have set me free

Taking the Opportunity

I've been rather silent here for far too long and something happened today to remind me that when I am waiting for a chance to get where I want to go, there is more to it than just wanting to have the opportunity.  I was driving home from a meaningful meeting regarding my current situation when, upon passing through a light, I saw a man in a truck sitting in a turn lane with his blinkers on.  He was attempting to turn into a shopping center and had been waiting there the whole time I was waiting for the stoplight to change to green.

I saw that the traffic had been flowing consistently, blocking him from entering the parking lot.  I slowed to a stop and flashed my lights toward him so he would know I was giving him a chance to turn.  I waited for a few moments and then flickered my lights once again.  It was to no avail, for he was not looking at the road. He had his eyes in heavy concentration on his cell phone and did not see me.  I could wait no longer, for the cars behind me had caught up and I needed to get moving  The gentleman missed the opportunity because he was focused elsewhere and failed to see the opening when he had one.

I was momentarily bummed for him, because I knew the man had been sitting there, stuck and at the mercy of fellow motorists.  Then I was puzzled as to why he had not kept his eyes on the road.  I then not kept my mind on important matters and had missed opportunities for my failure to see them.

In life we are all wondered how much longer he would have to wait.  It made me stop and consider the times I have taken my eyes off of where they need to be.  How often have I missed opportunities to witness, to serve, to be in a different lane because I am distracted?