sometimes when God is quiet

it's the rainy season again.  the skies have been beautifully intense- layered and complex - like life.

home schooling with a much littler child at home who craves attention and is finding her place in our family, is also layered and complex.  homeschooling someone who still struggles with regulation- who wears shorts and a tee-shirt when it's 50 degrees outside and then sits covered in goosebumps, complaining about something irrelevant because she is cold but doesn't know it- is intense. 

this is life.  and i sit in it wondering what will come of it?

how do you teach someone to understand and attend to the primal feelings in their body of hunger and heat and cold? especially when they don't want to learn? when they think it's "help".  i guess this is the expected regression in the presence of number four.

this mornings readings were about when God is silent and we are hurting.  or when God says 'no' and we are scared,  or 'not yet' and we are suffering.  when there is waiting. quiet. unrequested lack of response. 

as a parent, i think i understand God a little better.  i mean i see things from another angle- that i couldn't have known fully before.  i see silence differently. 

sometimes i let my kids try things that could result in injury because i think discovery is important even if it hurts. 

today rose tried to climb the bunk bed ladder.  she got stuck a few times- and made that anxious panicky sound- that 'i'm afraid i'll fall' sound.  i stood behind her- knowing if she really fell i would catch her- but i didn't rescue her- i told her she could do it- i encouraged her- and she climbed to the top bunk. 

but other times i watch my kids from a far. i'll watch through the window as zoe struggles to do her copy work.  i'll watch silently and let her battle through it alone.  i'm there ultimately if needed- if there is full decompensation- but she needs to know she can handle it- work it out herself- not rely on me to bale her out. 

and sometimes i won't even watch at all. jude learned to ride a bike this weekend, the next day i let him ride our dirt road unobserved- i knew he'd probably fall- but that he'd be okay.  he came home with a bunch of scrapes and a lot of dirt, but even more self-confidence.
"mommy- you should have seen it! i wiped out- but i was fine!"
he had a story of his own.  he knew himself better. 

but whether i'm standing behind someone on the bunk bed ladder, or watching from the window, or not watching at all but knowing the situation- i'm still there.  i still love them all the same.

sometimes growth hurts- sometimes it's scarey- sometimes it requires a lot of us and we may feel alone.  this is how i feel God some days. i'm on a dirt road having just learned to ride and i fall.  i cut my knee.  my bike is heavy- it fell on me too. i can't see anyone watching.  i wish someone could pick me up and carry me- but my mom is inside (doing something extremely important:).  so i have to do it by myself.  i lift the bike, i have that hot feeling in my slightly abraded palms, i dust off my cut and i get back on my bike and ride. i'm okay.  i did it.

some days i feel pushed beyond my limit, or what i thought was my limit.  some days i don't want to be alone with my copy work, or i want to feel a hand on my back when i climb.  but. on those days, i know more about life and about me and about other people's experiences. 

so i will try to remember that quiet isn't always bad.  that silence isn't absence. that 'no' or 'not yet' can be big opportunities for my heart to grow into a new place- or to make room for understanding someone else- or that if i wait, if can be still- i might even be able to feel the closeness of God's eyes and hands.