Tag: Parenthood

Poetry · Spiritual

Ballad of a Mid-Life Mama

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By: JANA GREENE

What does the REAL me want in life?

I’d never thought to ask.

I forgot all about myself

While busy with the tasks

Of raising daughters

And leading daughters

As they were growing strong.

Did I stop to ask myself

For what my own heart longed?

No, I did the right thing

At the time…

I fixated on their wellness.

I hovered and fussed,

I tried to hand them over

To God in trust,

And somewhere in those precious years

I had a little inner-strife,

Because I couldn’t tell you

What I want for my own life.

But ladies?

Ah, now is the time,

To meet this a super Amazing Queen.

The one who looks you in the mirror,

The holder of your dreams,

And take the time to

Ask her plenty

What makes HER heart soar?

Hover and fuss over her some,

Then fuss over her some more.

My mid-life mamas everywhere,

Step into your new dreams,

And be who you were born to be –

A super, amazing Queen.

Parenting adult children · Spiritual

Trusting Adult Kids to God’s Care (Even when it really freaks you out)

Jana Greene7 Comments

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By: Jana Greene

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and because it was Mother’s Day, I cried a lot. I cried because it is my first totally empty nest Mother’s Day. I cried because  my own relationship with my mother is fractured into a bazillion pieces. I cried because someone I love didn’t acknowledge me at all. I did have a few tear-free segments of the day, but menopause was around to keep the good times rolling.

I may or may not have fed my feelings heaping spoonfuls of Haagen Dazs Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Ice Cream.

I’m still kind of mopey, honestly. But I’m getting a grip today. I must get a grip today.

You see,  I love my daughters. Oh my God, how I love my daughters. But they took different paths than I’d expected.

I think that every mother has a certain set of dreams and assumptions for her child. Those assumptions are that your child will grow up to be successful and kind and happy, and stop wiping boogers on the wall. Happily, this is usually the case.

I assumed mine would grow up and get scholarships to universities because they are super smart, they would naturally stay away from all drugs and alcohol (from, you know, learning from MY mistakes, like THAT ever worked,) graduate college and get jobs they are passionate about. That they would be in straight, monogamous relationships – not living together before marriage – then get married to Godly men, and have a couple of kids that they devote their entire lives to, just like mom. (But that was MY own dream, and I couldn’t even do it right!)

Then there are is The Big Granddaddy of All Dreams –  that they will follow God – really know Him on a personal, intimate level. That they will pray regularly, and allow Him to guide their lives.

The reality is that kids are not appliances – there are no warranties. They are on a crazy merry-g0-round. You can try to hop on if you dare, but it won’t slow down for you and in the end, there is a lot of nausea involved. It’s best just to stay out of the way. There is no control.

There is, however, a loving God we can trust them to.

Perhaps your child grew up and stopped wiping boogers on the wall (remember when that seemed like such a BIG DEAL? Sigh)  but instead ran away from home and you don’t know where she is.

Or is gay / transgendered.

Or is a drug addict.

Or is in prison.

Or drinks to much.

Or is mean to people who don’t think the way she does.

Or has turned her back on everything you taught her.

Or hates you.

Or hates God.

…Any deviation from the loving plans you made for that child when she was first born and they lay her on your belly. (Remember how EASY it was to TRUST GOD with that child when they were brand new? Piece of cake!) New babies don’t stay new, though. They grow up and do wonderful, glorious, horrible, confused, amazing, and confounding things. Things for which YOU HAVE ZERO CONTROL.

Yet, in the midst of whatever your child engages in that breaks your heart, you still – always – love that child.  If YOU love her so much, can you imagine how much ABBA loves your child? He isn’t surprised at your kid’s lifestyle choices, and He isn’t limited by  our ways of imagining our children ‘fixed.’

There is no grace deficit for your child that you have to worry will run out. God is merciful and FULL of grace! Because they are not the droids we were looking for – happy little predictable robots – does not mean God is not working out HIS PURPOSE IN OUR KIDS, even as they experience stuff.

I still pray every day that my wild and loving and confounding children will make good choices. I pray that The Big Granddaddy of All Dreams that I harbor in my heart for them comes to fruition. I will pray that until my dying breath.

I want to trust the Lord with my daughters JUST AS MUCH as when they lay on my belly as little newborns, squinting up at their mama. I want to trust Him that easily with them still, and I’m asking Him to help me do it.

Jesus, 

I lay my children down at the altar and TRUST YOU with their lives. Ultimately I know that my children must know YOU intimately. Lord, help me get out of the way.

And all God’s children said, Amen.

Save

Spiritual

HOLD ME UP!

Jana Greene10 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

When I was a young mother and my children very small, I carried them on my right hip.  This went on long after they were able to walk by themselves, and so often that now -all these many years later – that hip has a tendency to jut out a bit when I am standing still. The youngest child in particular, I carried for a long time.

“Hold me up?” she would say in a tiny rasp, her small arms stretched upward.  In times of particular urgency, she would stand tiptoe for extra height and open and close her tiny hands rapidly, like the motions to the nursery rhyme about all the little stars, twinkling.  Of course I would pick her up…what else is a mother to do?  Her gesture acknowledged that she was small…that she wanted a better view of her world.

Fast forward a dozen years or so.  This little girl is in her teens, nearly grown –and trying to figure out who she is meant to be.  And I, as her mother, am on a similar journey to find purpose, I suppose you could say.  Of particular fascination on this leg of the trip is the fairly recent tendency I’ve developed to be more open during worship at church.    Demonstrative, actually.  With the lights dimmed during service, praise music hammering with invitation to God to be present with us, in us…first come the tears. And then the hands.

I did not grow up a “hands-raiser”, or a “tongue-talker”.  I was raised swaddled in a quilt of various Bible-belt denominations, Baptist and Methodist chief amongst.  Shouting was for cheering at football games, “amen” was for saying grace at dinner, and hand-raising for students who had a question for the school teacher.  To shout in church was to call yourself out as a “Penty-costal”, to clap out of time was to call attention to yourself, and calling attention to yourself made you that thing which to was to be avoided in order to self-preserve: vulnerable.

But now, not caring who was witness to my worship, I wonder why? Why when falling to my emotional knees, did I try to stifle raising my arms?  Why did I question my own motives for worshiping in such a manner?

Choking with tears, I remembered my baby daughter’s pleas with outstretched arms.  And the urgency, in times she felt the most overwhelmed.  Or restless.  Or too weary to walk.  Was she raising her hands up to me in order to receive?  Surely, yes.  But also because I was so much taller than she, my vantage point offering an entirely different view.  The action of lifting her tiny arms to me made her vulnerable.

The first time I raised my hands to God, I was vulnerable, too.  But there is wild, unexpected abandon in vulnerability.

“Pick me up so I can see, Daddy!” is what my spirit says, in the most raw and relinquishing  of times – when I feel smallest with no need to self-preserve.  “Carry me”.  Certainly, a request made to receive his lifting-out, but also in the purest form of worship….the kind in which my spirit calls the shots, and my body must obey.

And He always, always picks me up.  What else is a Father to do?

Inspirational

An “Inside Job”

Jana Greene4 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

“The career of motherhood and homemaking is beyond value and needs no justification. Its importance is incalculable.”
― Katherine Short

My kitchen sink is clean, and I’m proud of that.  I have dinner in the crock-pot, and I’m proud of that, too.  And my kids, who are now sixteen and nineteen, sit down with me and  talk to me about drama that is their lives.  And I’m grateful .  I am not an active member of the Outside World Workforce (can I call it the “OWW”?) right now.  I am a homemaker and a writer, just for this season in my life.

I worked from home when my daughters were small so that I could watch them grow up, and then…just when they hit the adolescent years, I entered the OWW.  Well, I was still Mom, of course.    I fed them, and clothed them, and loved them tremendously.  But I had other things to do, like work to put food on the table.

In 2004, going through a divorce sort of forced me into the OWW.  At first, I worked four part-time jobs with flexible hours to support my girls.  Eventually, it became simpler to work one full-time position to keep a roof over our heads.  My babies weren’t really babies anymore, although they needed me just as much at nine and twelve as they ever did in infancy.  With their parents divorcing and three moves in as many years, they probably needed me more. 

It is at this point that they became “latch-key kids”.   Once again, I became one of the mothers whose heads I had previously heaped the hot coals of judgment upon.  When life was easier, I had the luxury to judge.  Now, I was one of those mothers myself.

I am learning – slowly – that coals are for fueling compassion, not for heaping in judgment.  But I can be a slow learner.

Those mothers, they do what they have to do – and yes, sometimes what they want to do. 

I am glad that women have a choice visa vie working in the home and/or out of the home.  But I don’t believe she must work outside of the home to be successful.  There is success in a clean home, and dinner on the table, and in being present for your family in the moment.  I’m not sure when the value of those things diminished in society, but it’s sad that they have. Many women don’t get the opportunity to choose at all.  I have been both, at times.

My recent stint as a homemaker?  Caused by a series of unfortunate events, or so I’d believed when the first “domino” fell. 

 I am actually most fortunate.  For however long it lasts, I will enjoy caring for my family in ways that – to be honest – I resented having to care when I came home at the end of a long work-day.   Tired, fried, irritable and stressed-out.

 
A workday that was supposed to make me feel successful.

The truth?

Looking forward to my husband returning from a day at work – and doing the little things to remind him that he is appreciated…..is a luxury that I am enjoying to the fullest.  Making sure he has clean clothes and a hot meal at the end of the day?  I find that fulfilling.

Yeah.  I said it.

When my girls approach me after school or work to talk to me about what is going on/ not going on/ bothering them/ elating them/ the latest crush/the latest heartache….we talk about it.  We laugh a lot more these days, because I am not too exhausted to engage.  Again, to God be the glory that I can be present for them now, in this moment.  Time is fleeting, and they are so close to departure from the nest.  

Sooner or later (most likely sooner) I will again seek employment out “in the real world, and I will work hard at whatever job is next, and do my best to be successful.  This season, too, shall pass.

But I don’t feel “un-successful” now.   Not everyone smart and passionate finds fulfillment in the OWW.

Some women are  better at “bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan”.  I’m just not that good at “having it all”, I guess.  But I sure do love all that I have.

It is fulfilling.  And that’s the truth.