Tonight, I drove to Eau Claire to attend a service called Substance. It typically ushers in the most meaningful connection God and I have for the entire month. It's mostly music, led by the amazing 513FREE, with a short 10-15 minute "message" thrown in. I could keep plugging Substance, but it's not the point of this post, and so I digress.
There's a guy in our band named Johnny, and he writes music. He's never written a song I didn't like. Tonight, he soloed a new song, and I got to sit in the audience and listen to it. The guy is only 20 years old, but God has heaped talent on him. The song he sang tonight was about living your life like it's the last day. What if it was the last chance you had? To do anything?
I can tell you I'd be a whole lot nicer to my husband and kids.
I thought about what it would be like if I could have the experience of Ebeneezer Scrooge. What if "The Ghost of Christmas Past" came and took me back to look at my Former Self? And what if it took me to any given day to observe my previous self with my children.
The image that came into my head is the very common picture of me standing at the stove cooking or at the sink doing dishes or at the counter chopping veggies for something. My hands are wet or dirty, my four-year-old daughter is leaning on my leg, repeating for the fourth time her desire for chocolate milk (even though I've told her I'm busy and that she'll need to wait). She reaches up maybe to grab a piece of cucumber I've just sliced, and as I nearly chop her tiny finger, I hear my two-year-old son open the fridge. He proceeds to dump a freshly-made pitcher of apple juice into the fridge and onto my kitchen floor, immediately soaking my cooking magazine that he was earlier tearing pages out of, even though I needed the recipe for dinner that very night.
My Former Self shoves the cutting board away, SLAMS the knife on the board, and lays into both kids. Shouting ensues, followed by children's tears, my own anger (not just at the kids but now myself for acting so childish), and a trip to the bathroom to grab a towel for the mess. I come back to find the two-year-old playing in the juice and to see wet, four-year-old-sized tracks leading to my living room. There's more yelling, some shooing, maybe an undeserved spanking, cleaning, and a little tear-streaked girl still whining for chocolate milk.
In all my Former Self's anger and haste, I completely missed both of my kids' needs. Not only that, but by ignoring their desires, I have hurt them. Every time I act this way, I'm pouring yet another thin layer on the foundation of how they will treat each other, their friends, their eventual spouse, and their own children.
It breaks my heart to look at this scene and see my selfish, knee-jerk reaction to the sequence of events. I want to reach into the vision and shake my Former Self and tell her to open her eyes.
Every day at some point, I put what I'm doing (which is usually as unimportant as cutting cucumbers) ahead of giving my kids the attention they request. Sadly, it's not just my kids that I do this to, but my husband as well. And how can I expect them to treat people any differently-- including myself? I don't allow my daughter to speak disrespectfully to me, so why would I use such harsh words and tones with her?
I do think that at times, these things are warranted. If my child is running into the street or cramming a key into an electrical outlet, I'm not going to calmly walk over and carefully explain the dangers of his or her situation. I will shout whatever words are necessary to immediately stop the behavior. It just happens to be too flippant in my day.
It occurred to me today that it's simple laziness. I don't want to set aside what I'm doing, and I don't want to take the time it requires to actually teach or explain things to my children in a way they can understand. It's easier and quicker to shout, the point still gets across, and they usually adjust their behavior properly.
And even if this method works now, it cannot work when they are teenagers or adults. When will I change how I talk to my kids? When they're 6? 10? 17? It needs to change now. I don't know how or what it will look like.
I feel like the only way to see victory with a step this drastic is to spend a whole lot more time on my knees. But since I can't just leave my kids to go kneel beside my bed all day, I will need to trust that He can change me while I'm living and not just while I'm praying.
I want to be able to sign my name at the bottom of the "page" of the day with pride. Like I lived the day the best I could. My children feel loved, my husband feels respected, and most of all that God is pleased. I do, after all, wear His name around all day, calling myself a "Christian" or "little Christ." It's His name I need to be able to sign at the bottom of the day's page.
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