Do Our Kids See Our Past or Our Present?

Chapter excerpt from my work in progress: Ages and Stages: The Book

My original chapter title was "Do Our Kids See Our Past or Our Present?" but just this morning I thought of two alternatives: "When We Live in Our Past" or ""Overcoming the Past, Wading through the Present". Neither of these may become the actual titles, but such is the process of writing!

Here is an excerpt from this chapter. It's been one of the most difficult chapters to write.

In the mid-1990s our marriage hit rough waters. Doug called it individual hurricanes colliding to form one massive storm. It wasn’t fun.

But it was a needed season of learning. Although as young Christians we had read a lot about spiritual warfare and recognized a few areas in our personal lives that needed healing, we had no idea that our souls were really icebergs.

So in order to work on our marriage, we needed to address many of the unseen areas of lives. This included doing individual inventories of rooms in our soul which is the realm of the emotions, the memories and the will. Faithful ministers in our local church and a wonderful ministry called Freedom in Christ, founded by Neil Anderson helped us through this stage.

I learned that we always need healing from something. Whether it’s the dog that chased me down the street when I was five or whether I perceived that I was being rejected by a loved one just yesterday,a regular inventory of my heart needs to occur. If I don’t, my family is bound to be affected by my wounded soul.

All of us remember the environments and cultures in which we grew up and the relationships that made impressions on us. As children, we are blank mounds of clay shaped by other people. Every human being is like a chisel, intentionally or unintentionally

making impressions into the souls of those around us. The Bible calls God the Potter, and as a Father, His desire is for all of us to be initially shaped by parents who reflect His character. But there is no person on earth that perfectly reflects God’s character. That leaves even those with the most fortunate upbringings indented with impressions left by people or situations from their past.

(later in this chapter)

We inherit good habits and talents as well as predispositions to specific thought patterns and behaviors. Besides the goodnight kiss, I didn’t grow up in an affectionate home, and as a child I always admired families that that were affectionate. As a result, I made a conscious decision to be affectionate with my children as long as they would let me, which usually ended up being until the age of seven. The downside of this was that because physical affection wasn’t my natural inclination, except for the nightly kiss goodnight, my kids went without much human touch from age seven until eighteen or older. I found out later that as teenagers, they wondered why we weren’t an affectionate family. They missed it but were unable to ask for it!

Now affection is easier for me to initiate towards my older kids and even towards my husband. To put my arm around my daughter’s shoulders is as deliberate an act as being mindful of a child’s particular love language.  Was this generational lack of parental affection a muted ache in my family line? Heaven knows. However I’ve realized that as a parent I need to learn more about how human beings are made by God to function. I need to read books written from a biblical worldview about child development as well as adolescence. I need to remember the yearnings that I had as a teenager and realize that those yearnings were not individual to me, but normal for all people. Everybody wants a super duper bear hug at some point, even the teenage male who thinks he has it all together!

A few books that were instrumental not only in helping me model God as a parent but also in giving me tools to overcome the obstacles that were robbing my children of a emotionally healed mother were: Seven Longings of the Human Heart by Mike Bickle, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Victory Over the Darkness by Neil Anderson and The Root of Rejection by Joyce Meyer.

My Writing Nest

If you have borne, adopted or fostered children then you understand “nesting”, the almost insatiable need to organize, clean, secure and make the home ready for a new family member. I remember the nesting instinct hitting me quite strong before I had my third child. I’d been 4 centimeters dilated and uncomfortable for 3 weeks and by week 37.5 my doctor gave the okay to do whatever it was that I was inclined to do. I yielded to recommendations and purchased castor oil and orange juice.

But before drinking my dose, I had to wash baby clothes, clean our small three bedroom apartment and set up the baby bed. Doug still worked roughly 90 hours per week at that time and I praise God for a good friend who would pick up my 2 ½ and 5 year old for a few hours.

I got a phone call a couple of days before I had scheduled myself to induce. It was my mom. “I’m going to paint all of your walls for you so that they are nice and clean by the time you get home from the hospital.”

My ferocious nesting drive turned off and all was right in the world.

Although I am done having children now, I am in a type of nesting season. Our house was unsuccessfully on the market for four years so last January we decided to investigate renovating. We desperately needed an additional bedroom so that our newest two children didn’t have to share a bedroom with us!

As I turn my head and look out of the French doors of our great room, I see the faithful workers finishing up the last stages of a very extensive home renovation: a 2^nd deck. You can read more about this renovation on my personal blog: http://webbwilderness.blogspot.com/

My nesting-like desire was in force last night. I attempted to hang pictures, to paint old trim, to prepare a DIY wall hanging, and to declutter the music room so that my castor oil induced daughter can set her drum set up again. After living in tempered chaos for four months, I want everything to be in place and done as quickly as possible.

Can you guess what I’m looking forward to? Well, besides a wonderful spa-like master bathroom and a larger kitchen, I’m looking forward to sitting outside on our top deck in the cool of the morning and letting the inspiration of God meet my pen.

I look forward to sitting in one of my new UVa orange Adirondack chair, gazing at the stars in the night sky and letting God whisper into my heart. As an introvert, I need these quiet spaces to recharge my soul and invigorate my creativity.

In a few weeks, after our end-of-year basketball team party, the completion of our home renovation and my son’s college graduation, I’ll be able to buckle down again and continue my journey as a writer.

Until then, time to paint my son’s room.

Please visit my page, Ages and Stages, to find out about my current work in progress.

What really matters?

My Unedited Journal, March 1

Recently, while driving to an appointment, one of my older kids and I were discussing the roots of anger. The crux of our discussion centered on household pet peeves. The “little things” that people did or didn’t do in regards to our house “rules” had formed a mountain of angst that had begun to affect my child’s demeanor and tone of voice.

After asking some open-ended questions and listening to the answers, I remembered a phrase that had helped me overcome my own frequent bouts of frustration and aggravation.

Why does it matter?

Years ago I’d realized that I too was majoring on the little things when it came to house “rules” and this focus was affecting my peace and more importantly my relationships with various members of my family. 

Why did it really matter if someone left their towel on the floor again?
Why did it really matter if someone forgot to do a chore, spilled milk again, or put the carton of juice back in the refrigerator when it only had an ounce left?

In the grand scheme of things, these pet peeves were….petty.

I explained to this child that my angst had to do with inconvenience. I didn’t want to be inconvenienced by another person’s lack of attentiveness to our house “rules”.

But life happens and inconveniences will never go away.

Life isn’t fair and frankly, as a teenager I learned that the idea of fairness is an allusion.

I explained to my child that what began to matter more than the inconvenient habits of family members was my relationship with those same family members.

I was responsible for my attitude towards them just as Jesus is responsible for his attitude towards the law-breaker. The Bible says that Jesus did not come to condemn them, but to invite them into empowering and life-giving relationship with Him.

I shared that the more I focused on God’s love for me, the more I cared about the little things that I did that hindered my relationship with Him. No matter what I did, big or little, God never withdrew from me. It’s like in the Garden of Eden. Although Adam hid in his sin, God the Father came to find him.  God always pursues us even when we break His house “rules”.

So now, no matter what infringement to the orderliness of the household, no matter how many times someone forgets the “simple” requests that I make, no matter how many times they leave their bedroom light on all day, I make sure that any quick frustration that comes up is dissipated by my desire to keep peace and harmony flowing between me and the offender. This doesn’t mean that the offender doesn’t get a consequence. For example, I have a mason jar in which my kids have to put a dollar if I find their bedroom light on for more than 30 minutes when they are sitting somewhere else in the house. With a big family, our electric bill can get sky high! This has proven to be a successful deterrent. I am no longer angry or aggravated when I address the particular child. I simply remind them of the consequence.

When the cup of water spills on the table for the second day in a row due to a younger child’s carelessness, I take a breath, remember their age, and remind myself that I am still training them to be aware and careful. The inconvenient timing of the spill should not determine my demeanor and interaction with them. With every infraction, I want to model God, who continues to pursue our hearts with kindness, even when consequences (like giving them a paper towel and showing them how to wipe up their mess) must be meted out.

Peter denied Jesus three times. Yet Jesus pursued Peter in his shame not to accuse him or berate him, but to affirm and reestablish him as his disciple. Maintaining relationship is what matters to Jesus.

Slumps and Resurrected Vision

January is the time where many people celebrate newness. But what if you’re stuck in an old season? The reality is that the challenges of the past calendar year did not just go away at midnight on January 1^st.

While life’s seasons may not automatically be deleted in one minute, we can use the first few days of a new year to reassess, to ponder, to clarify vision or simply to see what is needed to move forward.

We never want to be needlessly stuck in an old rhythm, just because we can’t see what lies in our future.

Without a vision, the people perish.

Last September, I began to have a vision attack. Disappointment and discouragement set in because goals hadn’t been met. I grew blind. My passions were tossed aside because I just don’t like to waste my time if there is no promise of fruitfulness.

So I constantly prayed for God to show me what desires or dreams I had that were not for then or ever because I knew that sometimes childhood’s imagination can build fantastic adventures that have no borders. And while I was and am convinced that God plants seeds of destiny in our hearts while we are young, I knew that we see in part and it takes years of maturing to really discern the God-seed from the parent projected-seed or the fairytale-planted seed or the soulish seed that covets someone else’s destiny.

So my new “year” started way before Jan. 1, 2015 when I began to ask God to dismantle any vision that I had that was a mistake and birth His vision for how I am to spend my time and how much time to give to the passions that I know He put in my heart.

Oh my passions!

Most involve allowing the Creator to create through me: phrases, sounds, gardens, food, and the artistry of the home.
  

Oh my passions!

One book on the shelf: the plot is decided, over 60,000 words, but the falling action and resolution remain in my mind.

Another book just started, Ages and Stages: The Book, inspired by my blog series by that name. This one will be a soul journey as I write.
A series, part fantasy, part historical fiction: The Ages of Laus Perennis, which was started too many years ago…. (sigh)
So many songs lay in a drawer in the music room, done or in need of editing but my skill has maxed out.
The advice of my kids: “Buy a viola and play again!” but really kids, when?
A piano that calls me, but once I sit down, the warfare overcomes me.

Oh my passions!

Six children and a husband, house and yard that need seventeen hours of my day.
My spirit’s need to clutch heaven’s Heart every moment of every day, for this is what maintains my sanity.

I wake up each morning to a world that needs my tongue to pray and my hands to serve in whatever way.

My passionate list goes on...

I long for His presence to be known, experienced, celebrated…His name revered, adored…His heart kissed and understood, our worship of Him as extravagant as His love, and His world redeemed through the people that He calls His own. (selah)

I told my husband that my productive nature was feeling unfulfilled these days. Sometimes fruit takes too much time see. But like I said before, I want to make sure that I don’t waste my time on things that were never meant to be.

So that’s when it’s time to scale back on everything, except the necessities:
my family, household duties, and the God that maintains my sanity.

This is the ground in which He can plant or prune vision in me.

Jeremiah 29:11 

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Author Tina Webb

Visit my Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00GDOJJ22

To purchase books: http://beforethebeginningbook.blogspot.com/p/book-info_2.html