The Beauty of Failing

I will let you in on a secret.

I never title anything I write until it is finished. This is very cohesive with the way I live my life.

I remember one Thanksgiving Eve, getting a phone call from my mom, talking to her in the little office of the maternity home where I worked. We were having a normal conversation, discussing plans for the following day. Somehow it took an unexpected turn and she asked me something along the lines of "Are you using birth control?"

I felt as if I was slowly being backed into a corner. If I told her the truth...that we were doing "natural family planning" (you can all let out a little laugh about now)...then I knew what was next.

No, we aren't using birth control. Yes, we are poor and no we don't know what we are doing with our lives. Yes, we have one kid whose diapers we can't afford. Yes, we live in a tiny house the size of your living room. And yes, we are very open to bringing another child into the unknown of our lives.

Of course I didn't say all of that. I replied with a simple "No, we aren't preventing a pregnancy."

It was at that point that I heard a phrase that haunts me like my seventh grade middle school picture.

"You know, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

And there it was. My life in a nutshell. No "outside the box" sort of synopsis. Just the black and white. Those non-colors that I so hate to live in.

I have this thought (one that paralyzes me), that this life I am living...as a wife and a mother of three...with the dreams that I have yet to attain... will one day be viewed as a life of failure. After all, I don't title the chapters of my life until after I have lived them. Chapter One: Married and Pregnant. Chapter Two: Life in Chicago. Two more kids. Lots of grace and forgiveness. Lots and lots of love. Chapter Four: Thomas is set on fire and we all come out refined. Chapter Five: Life in Transition. Lots of questions for God.

So what if I haven't planned every step? Yes, I have failed. In so many ways. But I have watched God use my failures to humble me in ways I would have never known... and in turn, I have been given the opportunity to bless others with authenticity and messiness.

My failure to plan.

And even now, as I am writing this, I am getting a phone call from a friend who is having relationship issues with her fiance'. I find it ironic because she knows that I am (always at some point) having relationship issues with my husband. But I think that's why she feels safe letting me in. Because she and her fiance have watched Thomas and I fight. They know that when the crap hits the fan, Thomas and Cristi will lend an empathetic ear.

Because they have failed.

Because we have failed.

Some days I wake up wondering how in the world we are going to make it...financially, emotionally, spiritually... And then I hear my daughter say, as she crawls in bed between Thomas and I, just as the sun is revealing its first hint of day, "I love you Mama." I watch Elias as he picks up his brother after he falls or holds his sister's hand as she is descending the hill by our house. I laugh as Ezra spins around in circles waiting for someone to sing Ring Around the Rosy so he can say, "DAH" at the end and fall on his butt.

In those moments, I know this is what was meant to be.

I may not have planned it this way, but I will once again put to death the lies that tell me there is corresponding failure involved. Even when we plan, we often come up short. It's in us all being humble, admitting to our failures, that allow us to be free of the fear of the unknown.

I want to live in that freedom. I want to grow through my failures, not in spite of them.

As it turns out, my three (okay...two) "somewhat planned" pregnancies have allowed me the incredible opportunity to get to know three of my favorite people in the world. And as it turns out, we are "planning" to be done.

What may seem like failure to those around us is exactly what Jesus wants to use to humble the proud and give grace to the weak.

My Elias.

I'm sitting in the dark. Alone. Only the sounds of the dishwasher. The interstate. The noise maker in the kids' room. Quiet breathing.

I want to laugh at myself...tell myself how ridiculous I am and how I am only one of millions of mothers who have sent their son off to school this week. By himself. On a bus. To a world that I know nothing of.

Kindergarten.

Me. The mom who cooks an egg while making a phone call while writing a to-do list on a white board while dusting some crumbs off the counter. But today at 2:30 p.m. I found myself piddling around the kitchen, trying desperately to find something to do with my last hour and a half without him. I went up to his bedroom and opened up the curtains and the blinds, wanting the room to be full of light for when he would arrive. At 3:00, I found myself watching home videos of him as a toddler. I noticed his hairline and his forehead. I admired his big bright eyes. I muzed at his skinny little legs, comparing them to the chunky legs of his brother who played at my feet while I stared at the TV. I couldn't cry because there was no conscious thought on which to base my tears. Just a void. A hole in my heart. I thought of moms whose children have died. At least mine would be home in less than an hour.

This isn't permanent.

This is only Kindergarten.

But it feels like so much more. It feels like the end of a chapter in which the author has much regret. It feels unknown. It feels lonely.

I got to the bus stop fifteen minutes early. I paced the street, looking over the horizon for yellow...listening for that loud sound that is unmistakenly a school bus. Finally, I saw flashing yellow lights. My heart raced. It felt like forever before it rounded the corner to his stop. He got off the bus, smiled at me, and began running with his friend toward home. No hello. No "I missed you Mama." Nothing.

This is not atypical for Elias.

While he raced his friend home, I kept yelling at him to get over into the grass. "Slow down." "Watch out for cars." I wanted to control his every move. I was so scared something would happen to him in the few moments I was able to be a parent. And if him pleading to take the bus wasn't enough, my five year-old turned to me and said, "Why did you come to the bus stop? I can walk home by myself." Knowing that Elias is not the most senstive little guy, I muzed at how incredibly independent he is becoming and how that this is such a blessing being that he is at school for eight hours. Five days a week. Thirty-two weeks a year. Eighteen to twenty-five years of his life.

Not that I'm counting.

Sometimes it takes being away from the ones we love to realize just how deep that love runs. And with Elias, my strong-willed and stubborn boy, perhaps these days will remind me of all the wonderful things about his personality that I so often neglect to tell him...for the sake of disciplining him for manipulating his sister or for talking back to Thomas or me.

So it wasn't until this evening, while things were sounding much more normal in the house (Elias was yelling at his friend, Keziah was yelling because she was left out, Ezra was screaming for who knows what... and Thomas and I were having a heated argument), that I realized that the funk I had felt all day was valid. Our friends came for dinner and Seth said to me, "Oh, this is a hard time for moms. A lot of moms like cry all week and stuff."

Oh. So this is normal. I wish they would have mentioned it in Elias' school folder, right next to the uniform policy and lunch menu. I don't know when the funk will end. I just know that I miss that boy so much. But I also know that this is the best thing for him right now. So I'll rest...even in the midst of the yuckiness I feel about life. I truly hate change. But my soul tells me that change births beautiful newness. So I will force myself to embrace it once again.

For the sake of my firstborn.

My Elias.