When my kids were younger, I tried my hand at writing a children’s book.
It was the story of a boy in a small town whose grandpa had a magical house: The House of Broken and Beautiful. His grandpa was beloved, though some who didn’t know him suspected him of evil.
There’s a question Jesus asks a blind man in the book of Mark that I am occasionally a little jealous of.
“What do you want me to do for you?”
I picture the man there, not seeing the hairy legs he sits in front of. Knowing what Jesus smells like, committing his voice to memory. Perhaps the man reaches out a hand, adding a fabric texture to his mental portrait.
A couple of weeks ago, I was stuffing paper bags with sandwiches, flipping pancakes, signing permission slips, smelling breath to confirm teeth brushing, etc.–all your average morning chaos. That’s when my middle child told me he was quitting football.
Imagine the activity in my kitchen suddenly lurching to a halt. “What? Why?”
He had some good reasons. And a few not-great, 12-year-old ones. It was one of those weird parenting situations where you wish there was a highly detailed playbook. What to do when your kid wants to quit football and he’s been in it for a month and isn’t getting to play and… I told him to go to practice, and we’d talk about it on the weekend.
Is there such a thing as a monthly sin?
Because I think I have one of those.
Do you ever get tired of being the driver in your home? Y’know–driving the homework. The dishes from their hands to the dishwasher. The manners and respect. The time with God. The self-control in conflicts. The propriety in dating.
I need to admit: I get tired of the lack of my kids’ ownership in the values my husband and I care about–whether it’s peace, or order, or worship, or personal responsibility. And as my kids get older, in some ways, my control diminishes.
There are moments in my home that can only be tidily described as chaos.
Last night, as my two youngest were building a fort in the bedroom, I heard some concerning-sounding thuds: “That was the bathroom mirror, Mom! ” (Oh. I think that’s supposed to make me feel better?) There was also the repetitive, distinctive bleat of a kazoo, which I could have sworn I’d already thrown away. At least there was a lot of giggling, wrestling, and role-playing complete with foreign accents. (This time, at least, it was a good chaos.)
I thought of this today as I was thinking of the first time we actually hear of the Holy Spirit in Scripture: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
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