To Be Known

I haven't blogged in months. My return is so daunting. Every time I carve out the time, I sit down here at the keyboard and literally 2000 reasons well up inside of me as to why I have nothing to say. And I listen every time. I shut the computer screen and walk away. Nearly every day a blog post swirls around in my brain, but each day I am either too busy or just want to avoid the awful feeling I have right now as I sit here and try to type. So I am taking my own advice. Start small. Start with what you know. Hope for the best.

I attended a funeral a couple of weeks back for a woman very, very dear to me. Her son gave a beautiful tribute to his mom. He told a story of how as a teen he was on the football team, and his mom, despite knowing nothing about football and being naturally disinterested in it, attended his games and washed his jersey and supported him in necessary ways. But one day...one day he caught her reading a book on the basics of football. I imagine him peeking around the corner as she sat on the couch trying to study this book. Whatever the scene was, he never forgot that she was making herself a student of her boy.

This story got me in a place that I like to keep hidden. That place that speaks of my own desire to be known. The part that often questions my worth. I realized that I purposely do this with my boys. I always have. I have spent hours watching Star Wars and Ninjago, and researching garbage trucks. I have become very knowledgeable about pokemon cards (something I see no value in aside from the fact that my son is very interested in them) and I can tell you everything you need to know about each of the five Samurai Power Rangers. I do this because I always want my boys to know that they are seen. That they are known. That what is important to them is important to me. That I love their individual personalities and interests. I never, ever want them to wonder if they were known. This doesn't mean they get whatever they want. It means I learn it all, so we can talk about it, dream about it, play it.  Its my way of purposefully connecting with each of my sons. I think it would be easier if we were talking Little House on the Prairie dresses and how to style a barbie doll's hair, but I have learned that easy is rarely best. I remember when I found out our first child was a boy, I called my mom crying. I went into the ultrasound completely sure that I had no preference on the gender of my child. But then when it was confirmed I was carrying a boy, I lost it. The only words I could get out to her were, "But mom, I don't know anything about boys!" Her response to me is one I have never forgotten:" You will, Honey...you will know all that you need to know about boys." And she was right.

But most relationships that are deep and abiding and safe...are those that are purposeful. I naturally connected with my boys by nature of being their mother. But I chose to jump in to their interests. To be more than a bystander in a family of boys as the only female. As a young child, I remember wishing my biological dad knew what my favorite color was. What my best friend's name was. What my favorite cereal was. Even then, I longed to be known. I can still remember the moment in the hospital when Landon was born and I held him close. It was the wee hours of the morning the day after he was born, the sun still asleep. I was all alone with him as I looked into those little eyes and promised to know him. To seek connection with him. So he would know he is worthy of my time and my interest, more than just the typical stuff parents "have" to provide. I promised that my love would be tangibly applied to every area of his life. When you grow up as a child who had what she "needed" from a one parent, but not what she desperately longed for from that parent...it is a precious, priceless gift to be able to choose to offer those things to your own child and know the difference that will make. And this my friends, is how beauty comes from ashes. Life from death. New from old. 

Sometimes both parents fail at knowing their children. These children often have no idea of their worth and set out to prove it in all the wrong ways. There is beauty here too. If you never felt known, never felt loved, then listen to that still small voice that desperately wants to grab hold of the idea that you have a Heavenly Father Who wove you together, who knows you better than anyone here ever could, Who loves you more that your even capable of comprehending, and Who is, in ways we don't fully understand, weaving it all together to bring you Home to Himself.

When remembering his mom, how is it that out of a lifetime of memories, finding her with that book spoke the loudest to my friend? Its because in that instant, he felt known. He felt wanted...and loved. Connected. And safe. And out of that beautiful abundance, he now knows and loves his own children. Purposefully living in the overflow of redemption rather than the deficit of hurt.