Detaching from the Storms of Life.

There was another storm last night-- I snapped.
Ordinarily, I've come to love thunderstorms. They are a summer staple here in the South, and are usually only a few hours of crashing thunder and blinding lightening that often find me and the husband huddled on the front porch, watching with awe what God can do. Our summers are so hot that these storms are welcome breaks, and it's always sort of exciting when the sky gets really black and ominous and the low rumbles start.
Unfortunately, this year we discovered that me oldest has a real serious fear of thunderstorms. She's the type of kid who doesn't like noises, period. A sensitive, like me, she notices even the slightest whir of a passing car or the far of whistle of a passing train in the distance. These things really bother her in the silence of her pre-sleep "quiet time," so you can imagine that she finds thunder absolutely distressing.
It isn't 30 seconds between the first crack of thunder before she's screaming to us: "MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!! The STOIM!!!"

Sometimes it bothers my second, most he usually sleeps through it. She, on the other hand, absolutely flips. In the past, we have let her snuggle up between us, her head under the covers, and wait them out. But now that we have storms at least twice a week, I'm starting to get more than a little annoyed at this habit.
Why? It's simple. Because I'm selfish.

I don't get time to myself, and I don't want to be up all night staring at my kids. If this marriage is going to survive, we need some no-kids time to build and nurture what we can't easily nurture with a quickie when I have high risk pregnancies if you know what I mean. Likewise, I need time to THINK. As sensitive as I am to noise and what not, I'm the type of person who needs SILENCE in order to think, pray, and just be still for a while. I find it unbearable to be in the presence of another when I'm trying to journal, or read, or pray. Not always, of course, but when I want to "really" do it. And these days, I want to really do it. Having young children really takes it out of you, and the level of stress due to our ever precarious financial situation etc leads me quickly to the proverbial edge, from which I am only kept by some quiet time in the presence of God when I can listen for that "Still, Small Voice."

Because I don't drive, I don't have the same opportunities other moms have to take some "me time." I do EVERYTHING with other people, even grocery shopping. Come the end of my day, all I can think about is that 1/2 hour to an hour of Bible reading and prayer time I'm going to get before my husband comes sauntering into the living room asking to watch an episode of X Files with me or something.

So, all this to say that I protect that time with everything I've got. I used to get like this about nap time, too.... If something interrupted the silence of naptime, I went on a warpath. It was the only time during the day when BOTH my kids were silent for two hours, and darn it, I was going to take FULL advantage. I realized when my husband came back to work at home that that naptime just COULDN'T be sacred to me anymore-- no matter what happened, I could never seem to keep the entire block of time to myself because someone would always show up at the door, come home, or call. On days where they didn't, one of the kids would sleep less than the other, etc. I went through every phase of anger and frustration, seriously letting a missed or ruined naptime wreck the rest of my day because I was so ANGRY at the injustice of it--- why was it too much to ask, when I give and give and give all day, for 2 stinking hours of perfect silence?
It wasn't until I learned to just take what I got (5 minutes or 2 hours) and roll with it without allowing bitterness to set in that God started, slowly, rewarding me with consolations in other forms... although I wasn't getting my "ME" time, my kids were better behaved, my husband was happier and therefore more pleasant, etc, when I didn't turn into a hellcat when naptime went unprotected and learned to just "go with the flow." learning this was similar to learning how to function with a husband who has different ideas than I do about planning.

When Peter and I were first married, I would get SO angry at him for bouncing out of bed and saying "we're going to to ________________ today! Let's go. Get your shoes on." I was the kind of person who laid out my clothes the night before, packed my purse the night before, and had written down what time I"d be where for weeks in advance in my little black organizer. I don't DO spontaneous. I don't like it. I like to know exactly how much time I have so that I can plan on doing exactly what I want to do. Selfish? Perhaps. I call it sensible. I remember fighting with him viciously for YEARS to maintain my sense of control over my time. I HAD to have two hours to get ready in the morning. I HAD to have knocked off the items on my to-do list. I was inflexible with these things, and OH, how our marriage suffered. Like naptime, it wasn't until I learned to relinquish these control sessions in which I got to plan and organize every minute of my day that God started giving me small consolations-- I found that I really LIKED some of the places my husband randomly took me, and that I really enjoyed some of the moments I had been missing by being so stinking stubborn. I now consider a badge of honor that I can get three persons (myself and the kids) out the door with NO notice in less than ten minutes and not forget anything crucial. I've learned to cope with that, and I've been given the gift of peacefully enjoying my family in that sense.

So why are thunderstorms different? Because they are tailor-made to take away that FINAL sense of "me time" that I get to myself. In the last month, virtually EVERY thunder storm we have had except one has been between the hours of 7-10 pm. Which is exactly the time I have between when I put the kids down and when I turn into a pumpkin if I don't get into bed. It's as if God Himself has ordained these storms to PERFECTLY destroy any semblance of 'alone' time I had planned in order to get something through to me: You cannot have what you want. I have gone through every range of emotions over these things (I'm sure the pregnancy helps) and just could not figure out why God would be so mean to me. HE has the power to let me daughter sleep through these storms, or to remove her fear of them. He doesn't. He has the power to prevent the storms, or to make them occur just 2 hours BEFORE bedtime instead of AT bedtime or in the middle of the night. He doesn't. Ultimately, I have to trust that He is allowing it for a reason, for some greater good, because He IS goodness itself. But just like my kids don't like it when I don't let them run in the street, I'm found, on nights like last night, shaking my fists, stomping my feet, and raging around the house in a temper tantrum that rivals my own children's at the injustice of it all. It might not seem like such a big deal to you, reader. "So what, you have to spend a couple nights a week holding your kid instead of reading a book. Get over it." BUT it is a BIG deal to me, because little by little EVERY night of every week and every day of every week is being given to others until I feel like I have no idea who I am anymore.

Until last night. As I slowly succumbed to the fact that this stinking storm was here to stay (And scheduled to stay all night) and that my daughter wasn't leaving my side, I gave up and just started reading to her. I chose Heidi, because I'm homesick for the alps right now. She ended up being so funny and interesting that I totally forgot how annoyed I was for at least forty minutes. By the time the storm had calmed, she proceeded to amaze me by saying she was planning on being brave in the storm, and asking to go to sleep in her room. She even asked me to turn OFF the nightlight, something she NEVER does. I put her down again, just in time to start my nightly get-in-bed myself routine, thinking that while it really hadn't ended up being ALL that bad, it still wasn't FAIR.

I put on my spelunking headlamp (the kids have our only lamp) and went to read a few pages of St John of the Cross, to see if I could find some answers. And find them I did--- on the tail end of the part I have just figured out. His "system" is to first train the soul to release attachment to any possessions and material things which might be hindering them. LOngtime blog readers will recall how much and how often I have, in the past, struggled with the loss of ALL my possessions-- with the idea that I would have to give up all my stuff. Thankfully, God has granted me absolute serenity in the area of physical material possessions so that I am actually quite at peace with this upcoming move and the fact that, once again, we are going to lose most of our possessions. But what is it about time that makes it different?

St John of the Cross spoke about our attachments in different terms. He wasn't just talking about things. If we can get rid of our attachment to THINGS, then we have achieved the first part of spiritual poverty, and it is a step up the mountain of Carmel. But there is so much more. He demonstrated how, in Numbers, the Israelites were so frustrated with the Manna. They had this bread from heaven-- this perfect bread-- but they clammored for meat and onions and things which this bread was not. Here was bread that nourished them perfectly and was ALWAYS available right when they needed it, but instead of being fully satisfied with it, they wanted more-- and what's worse, they wanted perishable food that they couldn't count on to ALWAYS satisfy. He shows us how it's the same with our attachments to other things besides just material possessions.

We can have extreme attachments to relationships. This is something that I learned to cope with when I first got married-- that ultimately, people are people and will disappoint us, that we can expect them NEVER to hurt us or to always do the right thing. We cannot be so attached to a relationship that we feel we cannot go on if it (the relationship) suddenly were not. Etc. I've seen attachments to relationships utterly demolish people, and I am thankful for the lessons I've learned with regards to detaching from the outcomes of relationships.

The piece I've been missing is that I can have an attachment to my TIME. I can be so attached to knowing that I'm going to be X place at Y time, that it utterly destroys my peace when instead I find that i have no choice to be in Z place instead. Instead, I need to learn to detach COMPLETELY from the outcome of every day and situation, knowing that God, in His wisdom, will have me exactly where He wants me to do be and then being open to what it is that He wants me to do. I truly, TRULY can no longer be my own if He is to live in me. This is great wisdom, but of course I learned it all too late to act on it when my daughter decided to do what she does and need help in a storm. SHE didn't destroy my peace, and neither did God. I did, because I allowed myself to believe that I was going to have a quiet night and nothing was going to deter me from that.

Scripture addresses this directly.

James 4:13-15

13Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

Thank God for clarity that comes in the morning. Lord, help me to detach not just from possessions but from people and time as well. Take ALL my will.