Epiphany

I'm so behind on my blogging. I've been meaning to post this one for over a week.

Do you have that one friend who every time you see her you pick up right where you left off no matter how long it has been? You know that friend who will ask you what seems like the simplest of questions only to find yourself bearing your soul. The kind of friend who listens…like really listens with her eyes locked on yours and an open mind. The kind of friend who doesn’t judge you, yet always challenges you to be a better version of you. I do. I have a friend like that, praise be to God.

I saw this friend one Friday night after not having spent much time with her in months. We embraced and agreed it had been too long since we hung out. She asked me how things were going with my kids – a simple and pretty common question among mommies, right?  Then I began my explanation, “Oh girl I was just asking for prayer for my relationship with Tristan. Now that Micah has gone to Kinder and it’s just me and T I can really focus on him which is something he has probably craved his entire life, but hey he’s the second child so you get what you get. Anyway, I can really focus on understanding him. Today I wanted to just hang out with him so we made pancakes and baked zucchini bread and oh man how that boy LOVES to cook. He’s a picky eater but he really loves to cook and I just know we are going to have so much fun cooking together when he grows up. I mean I just haven’t loved him well because I’ve always been so in love with Micah.”

And then my heart sank…

There it was…this epiphany moment…how is it that I haven’t been able to find the words or get my tired Mommy brain around these simple truths? Tristan needs me.  He needs ME. God gave him this crazy, type A, high energy, hot tempered Mommy because he needs me. We are so much alike. Our tempers are explosive. Our energy MUST be expensed. Yet we love passionately.  We both adore Micah and Daddy.

Oh how this Mommy needs Tristan.

He is teaching me to be a praying Mommy…a patient, flexible, creative, Mommy. Sadly, most days he gets an at-her-wits-end crazy Mommy but God isn’t through with me yet. God is showing me all the ugliness in my heart …the selfishness, pride, impatience, and anger. It is painful. Growing and stretching and transforming to the likeness of Jesus is often so very painful…not because God is cruel, but because I am so attached to my stuff  I feel like He is amputating a leg. How ridiculous that I have allowed satan to convince me I cannot survive without my stuff, so much so that I believe it’s a useful appendage?

Lies straight from Hell.

My stuff and all its ugliness is a parasite that will be my demise. It is destroying me and everyone around me. Thank you, God, for loving me so much to not leave me in this state of decay. Lord, thank you for cutting away every part of me that steals life instead of gives it. Thank you for your mercies new with each day. You teach me daily that I can be a better version of me than I was yesterday by your grace if I only pray to you and call on the Holy Spirit power.

He reminds me of Tristan’s life verses and how much truth they speak over us.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.” -Jerimiah 17

Lord, help me to trust in you every moment of every day. When tantrums come, tempers heat, and tears fall, I will trust in you. When sleep is lost and the crazy train pulls in, I will trust in you. When there are more tears than laughter in a day, I will trust in you.

He's just sooooo cute...it saves him every time.

 

 

More to come about this little cutie in my next post. More about Micah man and all his awesomeness and even more blessings from my amazing friends. God is good!