"She tears down her house with her own hands...."
Do snatches of verses ever come back to haunt you? I remember reading that verse years ago and smugly thinking that it was easily avoided. Strong faith, committed marriage, attachment parenting. We were building a home that would withstand those annoying mid-life devastations: teen stupidity, marital infidelity, loss of faith, weakened identity and so on.
Five years ago, I took to re-evaluating my faith. I didn't mean to. It wasn't on some "to do" list like "Buy arugula and make a new salad." I just found myself puzzling over the eternity question - you know, that really long time God sends people to hell—people made of the same stuff as me, except unfortunately, who through no fault of their own, don't have cable access to God.
I really believed if I sought the truth, I'd find it. If I asked, I'd get dialed in to the still small voice station. I figured if I knocked, the mystery would split open at the seams and truth-juice would ooze out.
Oh the tangled webs we weave, to mix metaphors. The small fissure in my faith that I was certain could be stopped up with a new twist on the old teachings became a fault line. Within five years, I agreed with Bono in the ZooTV tour: Everything you know is wrong.
In addition to faith, marriage and parenting flipped upside down - how to relate, how to bond, how to worship, how to educate, how to parent and supervise.... It was like remodeling a house where you remodeled the kitchen but then that threw off the lay-out of the living room so you had to knock out a wall or two in there as well. But who can remodel the living room without tweaking the dining room? And so it went. Pretty soon every room had walls knocked out, wires dangling, decor missing and howling winds blowing right through. It felt open and free, at first, but it's also gotten a mite drafty and exposed too.
I'm still beaten and blown by the wind, blown by the wind...
Today, after crying my eyes out, I decided to put on the hard hat and start reordering the mess. My oldest is turning eighteen. The life he is living and the one I had imagined for him don't match. While no one is mainlining heroin (my deepest fear and most oft repeated refrain: "Don't do drugs"), I find that what I pictured life to be at this stage of the journey looks more like "she tore down her house with her own hands."
I want to believe "Uncertainty can be a guiding light" but today it just looks more like uncertainty.
I'm grieving paradise lost.
And I'm sick of remodeling. Oh. My. God. Would the good ideas and questions just stop stomping around my house tracking in so much dirt?
6 comments:
I have to go judge my friend's art show and so don't have time for a long reply, yet what you've said here is ringing true in my life, as well. Particularly in terms of tearing down my own house, parenting a teen, breaking down what I thought parenting and being married is/was, etc. I am ready to put on the hard hat in terms of parenting and marriage. Lately, I just feel like I have these scabs that are constantly torn off exposing the raw flesh over and over and nothing truly gets to heal. I am ready to start the healing process.
Just a question, but where's the quote about "tearing down her house" from?
And, boy, do I feel your pain...
Julie, I am sorry to read about your struggles. I'm not really sure what it is about the life your son is living that appears to be at the heart of this messy remodeling project, but I can certainly relate to the disappointment of seeing dearly held hopes go unfulfilled.
I'm not sure if I pick up a note of regret over the re-evaluating of faith that you began five years ago, but I can understand where it might come from. It is really tough when our own individual quests and questions cause disruption for people close to us, who probably really don't need the extra dose of cognitive dissonance that our unsettledness provokes. I have my own story to tell along these lines and your account, like so many other anecdotes you've shared since I've known you, really hits home with me.
If you have any interest in sharing more details about this, I would be happy to offer whatever insights my "youth work" professional experience and own parenting of teens has provided on your situation. But if not, at least know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.
Well, now I am sure God is trying to hammer some point home to me... after reading your blog and the verse you quoted, I went in our bathroom to get ready to go and would you know it? Jeff had left his Bible in there opened to the same exact verse! He rarely reads his Bible in the bathroom and I only check your blog every few months... so, I can't chalk it up to mere coincidence, can I?
So, what does it mean? In what way am I being the foolish woman by tearing down my own house with my own hands? I wish I knew the answer... now, to find it.
Julie,
I can honestly say I empathize. My marriage, faith, and parenting have gone through similar (but unique, of course) changes in a short period of time. I'm OK with my parenting, realizing that the direction I went with NCP was a good balance to where I had been, not a total answer. And my faith is now at a place I can just rest in, and enjoy some peace. But my marriage, it feels very fragile indeed.
I will say a prayer for you. I also have thought of that snatch of verse, and love your remodeling metaphor, in conjunction with it. You cannot rebuild something beautiful until you've scraped off the cruddy wallpaper, knocked out the useless walls, pulled back the stained carpet. But you're right...it's not a very peaceful, happy place to live, until the remodel job is finished. Hugs to you. B
Julie, I know we have all felt this way at times. We wonder are we tearing down our houses with our own hands. We are only human.
Somtimes to me, parenting & life, seems to be two steps forward and one step back.
Once I start comparing where I am (or where my family is) with someone else, I lose focus on why I am where I am instead of where they are. It helps that my husband always tells me "Things are never as good as they seem or as bad as the seemy" in their home, our home, _____.
One thing my mother in law told me years ago is that loving your children covers up lots of mistakes you make as a parent. If they know you love them--and I'm sure your kids knows that---the mistakes mostly fade away and the good memories remain. LOVE is a powerful force and you have that in abundance.
Hugs,
Susan
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