Mid-Life Peace?

"You look pretty", my husband sweetly said to me one night as we watched our nightly basketball on tv. I rolled my eyes and said, "I appreciate your husband vision. I actually look quite terrible tonight." He said what he always says, "Not to me." I then surprised him with this one: "I think I'm having a mid-life crisis." He laughed out loud and hollered out, "Nooooo! You're not! I can't afford thaaaaat! Go baaaaack!!" He's hilarious. I'm quite serious.

This is a typical winter conversation for us, as the temperatures dip below zero, and we are bored, bills are piled up, the kids are tired of school, and even the dog is tired of all of us. We're all having a mid-winter crisis.

Even as I tried to pray this morning, I kept trying to find the words and I just kept failing because I'm just so drained, and I feel like I say the same thing all the time.  I think about the world-problems. I think about the community-problems. I think about the school-problems. I think about the upcoming election-hello,problems. It seems I am always praying about problems!! While I usually open my prayers with praises, these mid-winter prayers are pretty sadly filled with requests. Everyone has problems! And quite honestly, my praises feel pretty fake when my heart is full of worries.

 This isn't a "mid-life crisis", whatever that is. I am feeling my age, it's true, and I don't like it one bit. I'm looking my age too, and that stinks as well. I don't look at my graying hair as a crown of splendor at all. I don't think gravity is kind as it applies to my face, and wrinkles are for elephants and Steve's shirts. Graceful is for ballerinas, not for aging. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. I'm going into this fighting. My crisis is that I am getting older, but nothing is getting easier. In fact, some things are getting more difficult. Why oh why did I think the toddler years were so hard?? What I wouldn't give for a 2 year old's tantrum right now.

After my daughter's tough day yesterday, her best friend's mom came to pick her daughter up yesterday, and we had a nice conversation about life in general. She has just a few wise years on me, and I appreciate her life experience.  She shared that she also spent years staying at home raising her three children and was excited to enter the work force. It shocked her to find out how difficult it was to work with people again, and how much fighting and backbiting occurred among grown adults. It was a rude awakening. Her smart solution with dealing with a difficult situation has been to study personality types. You mean, seek to understand people?  Brilliant. Although I spent hours talking to my daughter about trying to understand why a person would hurt her instead of try to understand her, it doesn't take the sting of a wound away. Especially when you're young. I get it. Hurt is hurt.

 So, maybe that's what this is for me. A rude awakening. I spent years enjoying my children, their friends,  and their lives, and now that they are entering the "adult" world and getting their noses bumped, as I knew they would, I am feeling their pain, the changes,  and all of mine at the same time. Oh, this stinks for sure. I can't jump in and fight their battles, because I've always believed in allowing them to grow from their own difficulties, but I still carry their pain on my shoulders. It is not easy to watch a child struggle and not be able to fix it. I can take it to God, yes, but to not see a solution, or to see it go in a completely different direction than how I prayed, is the most difficult thing to watch. I get angry, wondering why I have made my kids patient and soft only to be crushed by mean people. Then I remember this is the character of Christ, and it sets them up to be persecuted as he was. And I remember the words "life isn't fair", and people aren't fair either, because some people are insecure in themselves and will tear you down to build themselves up. They put up a defensive front on the outside, appearing strong and powerful, even pushy or outgoing. But on the inside, they are scared and unsure of who they are, always comparing and wondering if they are good enough.  Someone who loves God will seek the inside of a person, and that's why we don't put rotting shrimp in someone's locker when we're angry. And it's why we don't wound back with words, even when we feel justified, because as I reminded my younger daughter "Tyson" yesterday, two wrongs don't make a right. But bless her heart for wanting to come to her sister's defense. That part is precious.
 
And the lesson that comes with this latest crisis is the lesson that comes with every crisis in our home. It's not about us. It's hard to take that when it feels like it is, but when someone attacks, or it feels like we've been wronged, or we have been wronged, more times than not, it's not about us at all. With that thought, we can take the steaming heat of emotion out of it, and replace it with understanding and hopefully move on with the lesson and grow a little. Are we going to be happy with the person who was mean to us? No. Do we want to sit with them and make small talk? No. But are we going to hold anger in our hearts for them forever? No, because we have to forgive and move on and not let it keep us from the good relationships in our lives. Especially our relationship with God.

So we continue to pray for the ones who wrong us, even as they continue to wrong us, because it's what we're called to do, and because we hope it will eventually bring  peace. And all of these situations will turn my hair gray, make me tired, and cause me to wrinkle my forehead. Now I know exactly what causes a mid-life crisis! Parenting teenagers!

Sigh...be blessed. I'm going to try. First stop today? I'm getting a filling at the dentist. I just can't wait. Praise God for dentists. Ha Ha....I kill me.