And my children: Facebook, Pinterest and Google Chrome

And allow me to introduce my children:  Facebook, Pinterest and Google Chrome.  We play together endless hours of the day and are making some awesome memories to talk about later in life.  Aren't they gorgeous?!  My husband I are so blessed!

 



I was buyontly flattened out in the tub last night and had this all the sudden HORRIBLE premonition of a conversation that could take place with Elijah in, say, 15 years.

Elijah, "Hey, mom, do you remember that time that I made that SWEET airplane out of those bristle block toys that we had growing up and I came and showed it to you when you were doing "work" on the computer?"

Me, biting my lip and disheartened that I can't remember "ummmm, no.  Sorry, hun."

This hasn't been an all-the-sudden realization but the idea of that conversation was all the sudden.  I've known for some time now, but it's all-the-sudden sunk in that I spend way.too.much.time on the internet.  The blessing and the curse of the "information super highway", of the "World Wide Web". 

Fantastic  - because now I have relationships that are a HUGE encouragement for me that I wouldn't have the opportunity to have otherwise (Facebook). 
Fanastic  -  I have the option to go online to order something instead of loading my 3 boys up to drive 40 minutes to a store to get ONE thing (google chrome, or any web browser) or to check the weather or any number of other resources that don't exist OUTSIDE the internet. 
Fantastic - Now I can get on and get creative ideas from countless other people of how to complete a project or fun ways to encourage my kids creativity. 

 Is this ALL that I do?!  NOPE!  I'm going to buy a timer to sit by the computer, soon, and when I sit down I will push it.  When I get up I will stop it.  At the end of the day I'm quite certain I will be horrified and appaled at how much time I WASTED online!
We are doing a study by Priscilla Shirer in my Thursday morning women's Bible study called, "Jonah - a life interrupted".  I've heard numerous messages, been reading numerous books and have had numerous conversations and convictions lately that seem to be all pointing in this one direction.  NOT that I need to shut down my access to the internet, but that I have viewed my children (not really knowing that I was doing so) as the main interruption in my life.  They interrupt me when I'm talking to OTHER people (on facebook or in person).  They interrupted my husband's and my childless relationship and the dynamic of our marriage was forced to change (as ANY child will do to ANY relationship - and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just change).  They interrupted, I feel, my easy going personality.  I feel more uptight and high strung that I ever felt pre-child (but thats my fault).  They interrupt my sleep.  They interrupt my eating.  They interrupt my crafting.  They interrupt EV.ER.Y.THING! 
NOW, before you get all bent out of shape and think that I'm child bashing, let me reassure you that you are very very wrong.  I'm bashing ME!  I'm bashing this ridiculous mindset that I've fallen into (again, without knowing I was) that my children are the problem.  This isn't saying that I've never enjoyed being their mama.  I have.  Immensely, most of the time.  I DO see the blessing that they are.  But until last night, after I was done doing one of my "Jonah" lessons and was flattened, soaking in the tub, I didn't see that THEY have been my life's interruption, in my heart.  I SO desperately desire time to myself and I feel like it just doesn't happen quiet enough.  It can't.  I have 3 little boys who are constantly, and rightfully so, clammering after my attention with every ounce of their beings!  Jonah fleed God's command to go to Ninevah.  I think MOST people would have.  Those people were freaks!  Scary business!  Who wants to go to a freaky deaky city like that and tell them they are going to burn to the ground?!  He ran and then he was et. By a big.fat.fish.  He didn't give the chance to see, pre-whale injestion, that Nineva was God's call for his life.  Until this point, I've failed to see that mama-ing is God's call for my life.  Regardless of how much I buck it.  Regardless of how much time I spend running (spending too many hours in front of the computer "escaping" my difficulties of motherhood) - regardless of how long it was going to ultimately take me to figure.it.out, being a mother is my Nineva.  It's TERRIFYING to me!  It was at the beginning and still is most days.  There are so many other things that I saw myself doing - living in a cabin in the woods surrounded by majestic mountains and a thriving horse ranch - being a photo-journalist for National Geographic - traveling the world, intied, with my best friend, my husband.  Experiencing all sorts of things that God has NOT given me to experience because he's given me THIS!!!!! 





 THREE PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL BOYS to raise up into men of faith!  What tops that?!






Ouch! 

"Interruptions only become positive when we consider the person or the circumstance interrupting to be more significant than that which currently occupies our attention."  Priscilla Shirer

Yes, I consider my boys more important than Facebook, Pinterest and Google Chrome, but a lot of days go by that I certainly don't act that way.  Posting status updates isn't my problem.  Clicking on pinterest to quickly grab a recipe or for a second check just.how. to make that thing I've been working on, thats not the problem.  The problem comes when little Mr. 14th month old Joel is shaking the baby gate and calling my name and I'm too busy checking out every one else's lives to go love on him.  The problem comes when Elijah brings me something incredible that he's made with his bristle blocks (and I tell you what, that boy can BUILD with those things!) and I'm too busy "pinning" to turn and really look at and appreciate what he's made.  The problem comes when Judah comes up to me and climbs to my lap, but I send him away because I get irritated when he gets in the way of my typing.  THOSE are the problems.  THAT is when I am giving the "information super highway" my Mama attention.  When it becomes more important.

A side note:  NO, I do not believe it's ever fallen into the category of "neglect".  NO, I do not believe there needs to be any outside intervention.  NO, I do not believe I am an extreme when it comes to this issue.  It's just too extreme for me to ignore, anymore. 

I don't want to push post.  This is raw and I don't want anyone to know it.  I don't want to admit it.  But I have to.  I have to because I know it's the first step to stopping the pattern.  I have to because I KNOW I'm not alone in this.  I truly believe it has become mainstream in our technology era and has become acceptable.  It's not.  Thats all there is to it. 

THIS  >>>>> 

is.not.acceptable.

Judah

There never fails to be negative feedback from my "transparent" posts about my children.  I've toned back my raw frustration, but it's just life.  It's the way things are.  Children are exhausting, and frustrating, incredible, strange and wonderful.  I was beside myself from the time that Elijah was 18 months or so and still am most days with the constant task of guiding in GENTLENESS.  Gentleness isn't something that comes naturally for me.  For some strange reason that dates back generations (this I will probably not ever go into) it's easier for me to be patient with Judah.  That being said:

Judah has thrown an entirely different rack of darts at me.  He's much more outright with his aggression, compared to his somewhat passive aggressive older brother.  He hits and screams and daily questions my authority as his mother.  The words escaping his precious little mouth are often words telling me off about something I've asked him to do or not to do.  If caught in the wrong mood for correction or guidance he's often running toward me to hit whatever body part of mine he can reach first in protest of correction or guidance.  He was as laid back a baby as I'd ever known (until Joel, of course) and I was doused in hope that he'd remain that way.  The fussyness and whining started around 15 months and I tried desperately to convince myself that he was just teething.  He may have been, but it didn't stop once those pearly whites escaped the confines of their prisons.
Lately, he breaks my heart.  He's been downright nasty to me.  He's still fed emotionally by cuddling and we do a mightly lot of it, but in the inbetween times it seems he's taken on the task of being as strongwilled, naughty and disrespectful as humanly possible for his tiny age.  I'm certain this is normal for this stage in human brain development, but it hurts my mommy heart so.  To use the common cliches, my heart swells, it melts, it beats because of him (not only him, of course).
I will not let up my guidance of him.  I've been called to raise men of faith and by the power that God has entrusted in me, I will fight to do so.  It will seem trivial, I'm sure, someday.  For right now, my heart longs for a joyful, compliant boy.  It will come.  I will pray.

Seriously KILLER thought life

It's late, and I have a thing tomorrow.  My alarm is set to go off at 6:00 and will remain that way regardless of how long this takes me to write and regardless of what time I finally shut my lids to sleep.  The sense of urgency that has grown in my heart about this post over the past couple of hours is enough to keep me from falling asleep anyway, so I'm just going to pound it out.  It was one of those crazy rapid fire neuron thingies that stemmed from one initial thought that was seemingly completely unconnected from any other previous or surrounding thought.  That thought led down a long trail of memories and thoughts that within a matter of second left me standing in the shower walking through what I'd say in this post.  It all happened in the shower.  It all happened in a matter of seconds.  I had decided I was going to wait until tomorrow to write it, but it just wouldn't.stop.nagging.  So here I am, wet hair, sitting on the bed, teeth unbrushed, tired as all get out.  But it can't be ignored.

To address the title of this post, I had a seriously KILLER thought life when I was a middle schooler.  I was  middle schooler, not a junior higher.  6th-8th grades.  Not 7th and 8th.  Just to clarify.  When I say "killer" thoughts I'm talking suicidal.  I'm sure this will elicit some dropped jaws, furrowed eye brows and questioning words from readers that know me.  I've talked to VERY few people about this part of my life and those I've talked to about it have never really gotten an ear full from me about it.  I tend to prefer to graze over it in passing on the way to a more relevant word on whatever discussion it seemed to have worked it's way into.  On to the beginning of my history.
 Those who remember me as a small child and even a middle schooler may remember that there wasn't much about me that fit into the "girl" category.  I had a horrific haircut for most of my early life, a huge gap inbetween my two front teeth (which our family dentist randomly filled in one early morning of my freshman year of highschool as he was, yet again, fixing a chip in my front tooth), barely a spot of skin on my face that wasn't covered by an orange freckle, a stick body with no signs of womanhood until I was WELL into my freshman year of highschool and non girly clothes.  I prefered to not be "girly", but never quite understood how it played a roll in my public school experience.  I'm not sure what bullying entails today, but I was bullied back in my day. (Note: those of you who were my dear friends growing up, hold NO fear in your heart that ANY of this is referring to you! You know who you are!  Be encouraged that you hold very bright spots in my memory of childhood!"  I was called names and told that I smelled like tuna (whatever THATS supposed to mean!).  "Freckle face", "gap tooth", "just another one of the boys".  There's others, but they don't matter.  I was told to go to the boys bathroom because "THIS bathroom is for GIRLS!"  She knew full well I was a girl.  She was just an insensitive jerk.  I sat down, peed, and then stayed on the toilet and cried for a healthy five minutes before mustering up the courage to walk past the door guard butterfly girl again.  My Dad held me on my bed in our cabin at Family Camp that night as I wept.  As for the door guard that said this to me, being on the heavy side of things, noticeably socially akward and having a "pet butterfly" that was at all times riding upon her right shoulder (yes, a REAL butterfly) probably put her in a prime position to feel the need to put someone else down, since she was constantly getting it herself.  If only I'd had a 30 year old brain at the time to know to reach out to her and pray for her instead of being so injured that I couldn't recognize her pain as being similar to mine.
My suicidal thoughts didn't come into play until middle school.  Middle school was worse.  I have vivid memories of weeks going by that held the end of every school day with a little girl weeping in the car on the way home about it being the "worst" day of her life!  And it was.  Every day.  For long periods of time.  I had a completely out of control sense of insecurity about the way I looked.  The way my body looked.  The way the "pretty girls" looked.  The way the boys treated me.  The way the boys treated THEM!  The looks that were darted my way in the locker room and on the basket ball or volley ball court as I stumbled over my enormously unproportional oversized feet.  NOW, know this.  Middle schoolers/Junior Highers, bless their hearts, have a brain that just.doesn't.get it!  Brains are SO wacked out at this age in life.  SO SO SO wacked out!  The feelings that I was feeling were so painfully real for me regardless of how real the situations were that were eliciting those feelings.  My view of things, I'm certain, was quite worse that reality itself.   This is where the suicidal thoughts came into play and I think DO come into play for more kids than anyone would expect (as I said before, I'm sure it's a shocker for the readers that know me to find all this out).  For THEM, it's real!  It's painfully and unmistakeably real!  REGARDLESS of how stupid and petty and babyish is all seems, is SO SO SO real in their brains!  Their strange, undeveloped, wacked out brains!  My dad rocked me at night if I wanted him to and spent more time investing in my life than most dad's can say for themselves and prayed for me daily (and still does.  Thank you, Dad!).  My mom told me often that I was beautiful and encouraged me that I didn't "need" make-up as she showed me how to apply mascara when I asked her to.  She prayed for me daily, as well, and still does. (Thank you, Mom!)  They were always a motivation for me to stick around.  I'm telling you, I was feeling desperate.  Again, as childish and petty as these things may have appeared to an adult, my insecure middle school brain just couldn't process it in a "normal" human way.  That age of people aren't "normal".  It's the most UNnormal age of life.  Yes.  Observe and understand how ABnormal it is!

There were knives that sat on the counter all tucked neatly in their slots of the wooden knife block.  I'd go to the kitchen to get a drink of water just so I could stand there and stare at them and decide, once again, that I wasn't going to take one out.  My heart would pound and my palms would get all sweaty.  I'd finally snap out of my trance and put the cup down and pad off to bed.  This wasn't at our house in Powell.  It was at a cabin that we'd rent for a week in the summer up in the mountains.  I loved that cabin.  The mountains made me feel renewed, alive, revived.  Thats when Satan would attack the hardest.  Getting away with my dear family to an environment that has always spoken to my heart the strongest, he'd fight to keep my attention on the trouble awaiting me at home.  The trouble of striving to fit in, to be liked, to be called by my real name.  To keep a friend that would WANT to hang out with me in school.  I know it's disturbing.  I know it's no fun to read.  It's no fun to remember.  It's honestly no fun to write, but I feel like it needs to be written.  There's just no way to know how their little brains are processing things.  Maybe someone will read this that remembers saying something not very nice and think that it just wasn't that big of a deal.  And it probably wasn't.  But to my brain it WAS.  To their brains it IS!  Me, a little girl from a strong Christian family with loving parents and loving siblings stood in the kitchen of a mountain cabin staring at the knives in the knife block, deciding which one would be the most pain free.  (Take heart, knife blocks no longer torture my thoughts.  God has used my experiences from grade school and middle school to make me who I am today.)  My heart cries when I see the akward one.  The picked on one.  The unliked one.  I know them.  I know their hearts.  I fear for them.  I pray for them.  I probably should do something with them, ministry wise, but until tonight I've never felt that strong of an urgency.  I guess I have felt it, but I've wrongly ignored it.  This is my first step in ignoring it no longer.  ( And I'm sure this isn't the norm for every middle school aged childs brain, but I fear it's more par for the course than we'd like to think.)
My challenge to you, parent or not of a child in this akward stage, PRAY.  Don't be paranoid, but PRAY! TALK! LOVE! ENCOURAGE! UNDERSTAND! LISTEN! WATCH! PROTECT!

I was serious enough about those knives in that block.  Had I not had the family that I had.  Had I not been covered in the prayer that I was shrouded in.  Had I not been held and rocked and listened to.  Knives or no knives, I was serious enough about getting out.  Had I not been embraced...
EMBRACE AND PRAY!




p.s.  No.  I wasn't ALL horrible!  Satan capitolized on the pain I was experiencing and had a royal time with my thought life for a while, but other than that wrinkle (that was HUGE for a while) I had rockin good childhood!