The Day I Forgot My Own Child

So it was bound to happen. My mind has just not been flying straight since the New Year. I can blame it on stress, on distraction, or the fact that I’ve been sick for a week and feeling scrape-me-off-the-floor yuck. But in reality, it was probably just about time.

I picked up the older girls from carline as usual. I had Hannah with me in the van, and we had left the dog at home today. There was chatter and questions and fussing as usual, but my mind was on the tedious Wal-Mart list in my purse and the fact that I had not gotten as much done today as I had hoped.

I was thirty minutes into my nerve-wracking, over-crowded, boot-some-people-out-of-the-middle-of-the-aisle shopping experience when I looked around, puzzled.

“Where’s Tyler??”

I tried to think and told myself to be calm even though something didn’t feel right. For although he is 12 and has a phone, I had visions of him wandering off, lost amid the aisles and susceptible to the strangers of the world. Emily looked at me blankly, shrugged, and said with a nervous giggle,

“We never got him”.

I uttered something, but I’m not sure what it was. I was thinking other things that I would be better off not putting in print. I grabbed for my phone and saw the following text:

U comin to get me

I quickly texted back an apology, told him where I was and that I would be there soon. I heaved a big sigh, knowing this was no catastrophe and that Tyler was probably grateful to sit in the hallway at school as opposed to having to go shopping at Wal-Mart, but still felt the familiar little chant in the back recesses of my head…bad mom, bad mom, who forgets their own child, bad mom…

Once the groceries were paid for and loaded, I headed back to school to pick up Tyler. He was in no hurry to get in, open Kindle in hand, diligently looking at something. Once he got settled in the van, he looked at me with a grin and explained his reason for taking so long.

“I got two days worth of reading done while I waited…I was just finishing!”

Two days of reading. I instinctively knew what he meant. Two days of his reading-through-the-Bible-in-a-year-reading-plan. That reading. The reading that he is further ahead than me in. I smiled and made conversation with him on the outside, but on the inside I was doing a little exultant jubilee.

I may not be the best mom ever and I certainly make my share of (daily) mistakes, but by God’s grace I’m doing something right. (I'm not the only one!) And while I may have forgotten my child today, the Father didn’t. Nor did Tyler forget Him. I think there was a reason I didn’t remember to get Tyler today.

And that makes me smile.

What is it Time For?

During the late fall of 2010, when I was trying to work through the first onslaught of my post-Africa feelings and subsequent struggle with self-worth, value of my life and management of various demands, a friend looked at me in all seriousness and told me something that has not strayed far from the edges of my mind in all the ensuing months.

"Beth, you need to constantly ask yourself ‘What is it time for?’, because even good things are not good when done at the wrong time.”

While I am very organized and meticulous, I am not necessarily very good at time management.  I have trouble assigning priority order and therefore get distracted by the sheer amount of things that need doing, occasionally to the point of shutting down completely and doing nothing at all through my hysterical tears.  It is a well-known fact that my favorite day of the year is the Daylight Savings one where we fall back and gain an hour.  Sometimes I pray God would make time stand still just for me, all slow-motion like The Matrix or even a miracle like Joshua in the Bible when the sun literally froze for a number of hours.

Alas, the only answer I have received so far is through the words of my friend.

What is it time for?

I was pole-axed when she said the words.  It was such a stupidly simple concept, but one that seemed so obviously right.  I am great at making lists and schedules.  I know what I want to accomplish.  But I am always ten minutes late and harried everywhere I go from trying to squeeze in “one more thing” before I leave.  I am constantly drumming my fingers and agitated when I’m doing something that seems a waste of time.  I never have enough time to do everything. The lists never go away, and I am never content.  So what is the answer?

 I hear God whisper softly “What is it time for?”

And through my despair I hear Him answer: “When it is time to work, then get to your desk and work.  When I inspire you to write, then sit down and write.  When the kids need you to be a mom, then get in the floor and play.  Do what it is time to do, and be there fully and joyfully in that moment.  Don’t be upset over what is past or anxious about what is in the future.

And when everything goes awry and it seems like time is being wasted, then sit still and listen…because it is moments like those that I am trying to speak to your heart.”

What is it time for in your day?

Ready for 2012

There is something about a new year that usually inspires us to consider change.  For a time, we become motivated to make ourselves “better” in a variety of ways.  My list-loving self simply delights in the permission…the almost mandate… to compile yet another bullet-preceded column of to-do items in the name of self-betterment and progress.

But of course, by mid-February, those dreams are usually shattered as the list becomes so many nagging demands or unrealistic ideals that have frittered away under the pressures of daily life.

So the thought has been pressing.  What if I only make one goal this year?  One goal that encompasses the entire complex outline of personal to-dos I might possibly conjure up for myself?  A single New Year’s resolution that is actually obtainable?

I want to take steps toward becoming who God wants me to be.

Not complete a 10-step program of What Would Jesus Do.  Not be perfect in the execution.  Not have the audacity to think I could possibly ever arrive on this side of eternity.  Just work on becoming me.  The real me.  The me that God sees when he looks at this broken, messed up bit of humanity.

It’s time.  God is calling me to concede the fight of having to order my own world and be put into order by Him.

I’m ready for 2012.

Not the Blog I was Expecting to Write

This is not the first entry I intended to post for 2012, but that one can wait until later.

I planned to spend the New Year’s weekend piled up on the couch with the kids, eating junk food and scrapbooking in front of the TV while watching the entire Extended Edition Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Instead, I spent it in an ICU hospital unit.

It was not the weekend I expected to have.

Saturday evening, instead of avoiding the craziness of the holiday in the confines of my living room, Wes and I were driving to Little Rock in the dark, going as fast as we dared, trying not to think about what might lay ahead, having left my surprised children in the care of their Aunt Lizzie.

It was not the trip I expected to take.

Saturday around noon I received an incoming call from my mother, and I was glad, because I had a couple of things to talk to her about.  But those things quickly went on hold as she told me my dad had been in a motorcycle accident.  All I knew initially was that he was ok, but had a facial injury.

It was not the call I expected to get.

But it never is, is it?   

I found out later that my dad was driving his motorcycle with a group of friends.  They had just started out, and he was about 4th in line of the pack.  He missed a curve, got into the shoulder that wasn't really a shoulder at all in small country town, and lost control in the gravel as he fishtailed his way a football field’s length down a ravine, narrowly missing a pole, went airborne, and landed just short of the tree line with the bike briefly on top of him before it bounced off to rest beside his unconscious body.

We went through the news of a bruised and battered body with a major tear from the corner of his lip through his cheek, later requiring 2½ hours to stitch up after a large chunk of wood was dug out of the wound.

We went through the news of a fractured hip, at first undetermined in seriousness, but later determined to be something that would heal on its own with a little physical therapy and care.

We went through the news of possible internal bleeding with liver damage due to inconclusive tests, later decided to be simply bruising and false levels.

We went through the news of 5 brain bleed spots in the brain, which resulted in an emergency helicopter ride to a hospital with neurosurgery treatment capabilities but later resolved on its own as the bleeding stopped and the trauma stabilized.

We went through the news of a ventilator added during transit, remaining in place for 24 hours due to first uncooperative combativeness requiring sedation and then later a lethargy and unresponsiveness that continued despite the removal of all sedatives and pain medication.

We went through thrashing and stillness, hope and worry, permission and denial, anxiety and fatigue, and a dozen other emotions in the course of hours.  We shared hugs, shared memories, shared tears, shared fears and now share a cautious but hopeful optimism as we work through the recovery and everything that means.

Life can change in a blink, without permission from us.  I was unprepared.  God was not.

And regardless of what comes now or in the future, that is something I can always expect.