The Plucking
When my daughter was two years old my husband and I would scramble to get out the door. Come to think of it, we have always scrambled since we became parents. However, a two year old comes with a different type of scramble; a very special scramble. It’s the type where you go in and out of the house 4-6 times before you even start the car. It’s the type where you realize you are wearing two completely different shoes once you reach your third stop light. It’s the type where you get to your destination only to face the reality that you packed diapers and an extra pair of pants for your child but you left the wipes on your kitchen counter. If you're a parent, are familiar with this type of scramble that I’m referring to. It’s a messy scramble.
Now, back to "two" being a special scramble. You see, at two years old my daughter developed a language around her wants and needs. She began communicating with the words that she had stowed away in her word bank. By two years old she had already learned which emotions she was able to pair with her language so that she could essentially get her desired response from mom and dad. She had decided that any object that she wanted would be called a “NeNe”. That’s right, a “NeNe”. So as my husband and I would be in the swirl of gathering what supplies we thought we needed to leave the house (all the essentials of course), my daughter would be pointing to all the items she deemed as “essential” and say “NeNe! I NeNe!”. And because I am the loving (sometimes push over) mother that I am, there would be times that I would be making an additional 2-3 trips from the car to the house to retrieve the various “NeNes” my daughter demanded.
Her “NeNes” started out with just being a security blanket and a pacifier. Once she learned that I would cater to her “NeNe’s” she added her stuffed puppy into the mix. Then came her Anna doll, then a purse filled with little characters and snacks, then her books, and finally her “extra blanket” for her dolls. I was going nuts trying to keep up with all her new “NeNes”. How much stuff did this child need to be ok for a 5-minute car ride to Target? Why on Earth was it so exhausting for me to keep up with the emotional demand of all these additional “NeNes”? Well, for some the truth is obvious. She DOESN’T need all this stuff! If I had stopped catering to all the “NeNes” after the first blanket, a few tears may have been shed but my daughter would have been ok. She would have had to adjust to the reality that she will not get everything she wants or thinks that she needs to be ok.
I’m recalling this memory today because in a way I have been much like a two-year-old. In the last few years my family has been on a journey. Becoming parents required significant adjustments in both mine and my husband’s work and home life. We’ve been faced with hard questions and realities of what raising a family really requires and takes. Yes, it takes. In the wrestling of these truths and adjustments I have found myself holding on to “NeNes”; the things I think I need to be ok. In the past year I have experienced these “NeNes” being plucked out of my life. When the plucking first began I grew angry. I lacked understanding and felt as if I were a victim of an injustice. My insides were throwing an epic fit and I can only imagine that if I were to display it on the outside I may have well been a two-year-old; throwing myself on the ground while kicking and screaming. People kept telling me “This is just a season. Your time is coming”. For a time, I’d believe that yes, indeed this was a season and yes, one day my time will come, only to have more and more hardships come our way.
Roadblocks became the rule, not the exception. The new normal felt weighted. Questions starting with “what if” began to haunt me and I started making mental lists and strategies of how I could control my life’s situations so that I wouldn’t encounter more hardships. If I just worked harder, or communicated better, or screamed a little louder then and only then I wouldn’t have to suffer. The greatest flaw in my process is that so much of this life is out of our control. I cannot control what pieces of this broken Earth land on my doorstep. However, I can receive it and ask the question “what now?”. Perhaps my expectations of what I think I need to be ok can be changed?
I started 2018 with a car seat full of personal “NeNes” for a 5-minute drive to Target. By God’s grace I am entering into 2019 having had various “NeNes” plucked from the my tightly clenched hands. I’m surrounded by my security blanket (AKA my family) and thanking God for its warmth and comfort. By His grace it remains and I am learning what it looks like to find contentment in the ordinary. I’ve been invited to release what I think life “should” look like and rest from chasing the “lesser” things. My journey has been less than perfect and in no way have I arrived. Though, I hold this concept of God plucking my “NeNes” as a form of spiritual and emotional healing. Abba, Father, is not a push over and is never threatened by the worlds biggest fit. If there are “NeNes” you have been holding onto for security I challenge you with a season of plucking.
"For the Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory. He withholds no good things from those who walk blamelessly." -Psalm 84:11
(Because of Jesus, I get to walk blamelessly)
"The Lord satisfies your desire with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the Eagle's". -Psalm 103:5