Yesterday I returned to church after some excruciating back pain kept me from going last week. My husband was playing on the worship team and had to be there early, so that left me to get all four kids out the door and to church by myself, and mornings are still the worst time of day for my back. We managed. We got there only 5 minutes late, which is the earliest we’ve been all year. We took our seats, and since the music was already playing, I stood to sing. After a while, my back wasn’t feeling great, so I sat down.
A war almost immediately broke out between my two daughters for the closest space next to me. A war that my oldest would never win, because all of the older siblings will sooner behave themselves and forfeit to the baby, to avoid getting into trouble causing a scene. Forgetting that I had a whole other side to sit on, my youngest was pushing my older daughter away from me. She did not want to share. I gently tried to explain that she could sit on my other side, but she continued to push her sister around. Finally I just lifted her up and tried to place her on my left side, which was wide open! And she screamed, “NOOOOOOO!” and pulled that stiff as a board toddler routine so that lifting her was almost impossible and added additional strain to my back.
I lost it.
Throwing caution to the wind, I swiftly lifted her kicking and screaming over my shoulder, and carried her out to the toddler room. With several walls and doors between us and the sanctuary, I sat her in a chair, and sat down across the room from her. She proceeded to kick and scream even louder now, because she really loves worship music and wants to be out there. Me too, kid!
After her third warning about rocking the chair that shouldn’t be rocked, so that the legs slam into the floor, I took her to the couch in a side room, and closed her in there by herself. The screaming became louder, because now she really wanted to be with me. She didn’t want to be alone, even if it was only a door between us.
As I sat there, near tears myself, from the frustration of a 4th child who tends to take up all of my energy and most of my time, leaving scraps of a mommy for her siblings, I realized how much like her I have been.
Last week I was unable to sit at the computer to type up the Monday message, due to horrible back pain. I had to record my message on Instagram instead. For those of you who may have missed it, click HERE. I talked about how this back pain seems to be an ongoing lesson of mine. See, I allow my world, my life to fill up with distractions, and I ignore God, not completely, but just enough to be able to do what I want and then cry to Him when things don’t go my way. I find it difficult to hear Him and listen to Him amidst the noise I, myself, have created. I believe many of us, if we’re being honest with ourselves, struggle with this every day.
Then, when things don’t go my way, when I become hurt because of my own poor decisions, I immediately blame Him. Just as Charlotte was mad at me for removing her from the worship service, and couldn’t see how this was a direct consequence to her own actions, I too cry out to God as though He is the reason I am suffering.
And when I feel as though He isn’t there, as though I am suffering all by myself, it takes me far too long to come to the realization that my separation from God is my own fault.
As Charlotte cried out for me from the other room, she realized something. She knew that even when she was mad at me, she didn’t want to be without me. Her cries changed from screams of frustration, yelling about what she wanted (and couldn’t have), to crying out, Mommy! Mommy! Can you be with me, pleeeeease!?
Any parent who has been through something similar knows the heartbreak of hearing your child cry out for you, when you are trying to teach them a lesson. Because we love our children! We want to be with them, we want to hold them when they cry, and take away the hurt, and wipe away the tears. We do not enjoy their suffering, even when, or especially when we know it is self inflicted. Nothing can separate them from our love.
No matter how loudly she screams, no matter the size of her tantrum, no matter how embarrassing it may be to drag her from a public place, looking like the world’s worst mom, I will never stop loving her.
Folks, this is how God feels about us! He wants to be with us. He wants to hold us in our suffering. He wants to comfort us in our pain. He doesn’t even care if the pain we’re suffering is at our own hands. He loves us still!