But if I did it - ooooooooooeeeew I would be mad at myself for making a mess that had to be cleaned up.

Hmmmmm…….

I think that this is a great post, and the exerpt that you mentioned was one of my favorites in the book. My immediate reaction would be to laugh at this situation, should it happen to me. I love the grace that ensued during this scene. I loved the image of Jesus and the Sarayu cleaning God’s feet. I found this to be absolutely beautiful.

My question is this… what if the relationship is the mess? I have been in a mad battle to salvage a relationship for almost a year now and have decided to just give up. How do you know when it’s time to throw in the towel?

I get where you’re coming from. It’s frustrating to be trying to help someone, especially when you have more experience, only to have them blithely ignore your suggestions. It’s annoying when you’re dealing with regular life issues; it’s maddening when the health or well being of their child is at stake. I’ll give you that.

But-

The responsibility goes both ways. Young parents need to have the humility to ask for help. We need to find ways to marry our desire for advice and input with our best intentions of providing a good upbringing for the adults we’re raising. But more experienced parents need to be willing to make themselves available to us as well. We need encouragement. We need someone, once in a while, to cheer us on and say, “Hang in there! You’re doing great!! You’re not alone.”

Because, I’ve got to tell you…that is seriously lacking in our society and, yes, in our church. I’ve ASKED for help. I’ve gone to the parents or parent of older children I admire, and I’ve asked for help. And, very consistently, the door has been closed in my face. “I’m too busy” or “Wow, there must be something wrong with your child, my child NEVER did that” or “I’m not going to spend time on this, ask someone else” can be crushing. I’m fortunate in that some of our closest friends at ECC have kids of all ages…so they are a wonderful resource for us. But, before we were lucky enough to hook up with them, that door got slammed in my face several times. And, honestly, I don’t remember ever having one of the parents of the older kids in our community come along side me and say, “Hey, you’re doing a good job.”

I know, first hand, that sometimes it’s hard to accept that it takes a village to raise a child. But we’ve got to make sure that when young parents ask to be a part of the village, we include them and not make them feel like outsiders or screw ups when they DO ask for help.

I wrote all that because I think many of caring mothers can be categorized as “overprotected” because of our labor and even in carrying the child for 9 months. The only person who knows the child while in the womb is the mother. We already have the bond before anyone else does So instead of overprotection, I’d rather lable it “extremely caring”. I think it’s just a mother’s way of not wanting anything to happen to what was gifted to them by the Lord. We don’t see ourselves as overprotected, but doing what our instincts tell us. I believe in motherly instincts. Some times we just don’t know why we know our children are going through something difficult or is in danger, but a mother just knows. It reminds me of our heavenly father. He knows us too. He definitely knows what’s best for us. I don’t think we would’ve been given our children if we didn’t know.

Now, to answer Ed’s blog, I do agree that others should be involved in the raising of kids. The saying, “It takes a village to raise a child”, has meaning. Especially within the christian community. But I think the issue is someone else knowing what’s best. I love my children and I know that I would never want anything bad to happen to them and I only want what’s best. If I need help, I would ask for help. And if a loving parent needs help, I hope they would not be selfish or too prideful not to seek help by others who care about their child.

See, I gave in a little.

I find that I become disappointed in people really easily… and from that the judgemental side of me comes to surface. After talking with friends and praying about this (a lot), it’s been pointed out to me that I am trying to control these situations. We can’t control every relationship, and I think that the broken ones are the ones that we want to hold onto the most because somewhere deep inside we really want to slap a bandaid on it and make it “better”.

It’s become apparent that pushing these relationships away is so much easier than attempting to embrace them as they are, at face value. I also have to remind myself that God has given me grace, and I need to use this gift to push past the difficulties in these relationships. I also need to remind myself that I can’t fix everything all of the time. It’s hard for me to ask for help with this, even from God.

A change occured in my life when I read this quote on a church sign.
“He who angers you, controls you.” I’ve expanded that idea in my mind to include statements like, “He who scares you, controls you.” I’ve given away too much time in my life to being angry or scared by other people. I don’t want to be controlled by others any more.

In real life, that means making an intellectual decision to learn to trust others, even when my emotions SCREAM at me to do otherwise. It means making the intellectual decision to model my behavior and thought patterns after those who are more healthy than I am in this respect, even when their health looks insane to me. And, most importantly, it means falling on my knees before God regularly.