Right Here, Right Now

I caught one of my boys trying to shoot hoops off our roof the other day.

Just admitting that truth out loud is giving me flashbacks. You’d think with all these boys, a wild mix of teenagers and middle schoolers and Y chromosomes everywhere, that I’d be used to that sort of thing. But I’m not, and let’s be honest, I hope I never am.

So we were working on something downstairs and this boy went upstairs. He went upstairs to get dressed for something at our church — an event where he would be serving the altar for a special occasion.

It boils down to this: he was upstairs getting dressed to go prepare to be an altar server and in the five minutes he had before it was time to go, my son opted to crawl out onto the roof and try to make a basket.

I was calling his name and when he didn’t answer after a minute or two, I gently walked upstairs, entering his room oh-so-quietly because I was sure I’d find my boy sleeping. The sweet, gentle slumber of a growing young man headed out to do a corporal work of mercy and instead I wound up screeching at the top of my lungs OH MY GOODNESS WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE ROOF?!

I got my boy’s attention in a big way and asked him what in the world he thought he was doing?

“Trying to score,” he said. No big deal.

Obviously it was a huge deal, one that took me several days to get over. I was mad and frustrated, tired, and overwhelmed.

“Lord,” I questioned, “what were you thinking sending me all these boys?”

I wonder if maybe I didn’t handle this situation too well. I fretted about my inability to train my children — on the roof? Seriously?! — and how we could be this far into the whole “parenting boys” thing without having covered that most basic of rules.

So we covered it, right then and there. But a few days after the event, I was still so upset, going about my day with my feathers ruffled because that situation was so far out of anything I had planned on dealing with and I felt so ill-prepared to handle it.

That afternoon, I was changing a poopy diaper, dealing with the stink and grime of it all and I had one of those flash moments where I saw myself in that moment. I kind of stepped aside and watched as I sat there, wrestling a fidgety toddler and her diaperful of poo.

And I had a smile on my face. There I was wiping and cleaning, wrestling — and singing. And smiling. I was happy in the midst of all of that challenge.

A few years earlier, that moment would have been my undoing. I might have completely unraveled at the irrational behavior of a child trying to escape the good deed of me cleaning them up. But now? I was used to it — I had made peace with this act, I had learned to embrace the duty of that moment and to give it back to God as one small (frustrating) portion of my day.

So here I am dealing with was a new moment: irrationally wild behavior. It was thrown at me, something not before on my radar, and while I hope it won’t be there again (though I’m smarter than that, I hate to say it), it was almost symbolic of a new season in my life as a mother.

There are always new moments, there is always something new to learn to handle with grace. Having boys that are growing and pushing the limits and learning who they are and who they will become — that is going to be a challenge for me.

My duty of the moment is to seek the grace in the midst of the crazy, to pray for wisdom and guidance and the ability to be the mother God wants me. I want to raise these children right, and keep my wits about me while I do.

This originally ran in The Southern Cross.