Love and Pain

 

I know not everyone desires to be nor is cut out to be a parent.  But being a parent gives you this whole new view of life that's almost impossible otherwise and I can't help but mourn the loss of that incredible perspective for those who choose otherwise.

As the old cliche goes, after the birth of your first child you realize you never before understood love.  With that tiny little life that has overnight made your life more complicated and difficult and restricted you find love bursting in - protective and doting and hopeful. It changes you slowly and immediately, and you never again view the world the same.

As my children have gotten older I can suddenly start to empathize with my own parents, and to an extent I think I can better understand God.  Parenthood, I've come to believe, is an amazing object lesson.  In loving my own kids (imperfectly) I find myself hoping for them.  I hope for them to be healthy and strong and balanced and happy - and most of all I hope for them to be good. To be kind and compassionate and to use their lives to make a difference. I want the world to be better because my kids existed.  As I picture them growing up I can imagine no greater joy than to see my kids become these kinds of adults.

But what if they don't?  What if as they grow up my children act selfishly and unkindly, what if they make foolish choices and do things that will hurt them and people around them?  Would I stop loving them?  Not in the least.  I can't imagine anything that could make me not love my children.  But the difference is between a love that's full of joy and freedom and a love that's full of sorrow and pain.  I see parents whose children have grown up to do well light up with joy and pride as they talk about their kids.  And I've seen parents whose children are struggling - sometimes in an ER room as they question mental illness and behavioral problems or substance abuse - and you can feel the weight of their sorrow.  Do these parents love their children less?  I don't think so.  But theirs is a love that never stops hurting.

As always this makes me think about God and us.  No one loves like God loves.  My love for my kids is often filled with my own brokenness and confusion, but God's is pure and sees clearly.  I can understand from a parent's perspective God's fierce desire for us to listen to Him.  If my love for my kids desires the best for them, God's love can only desire that more - and He actually understands what's best.  I don't believe that our sin and brokenness ever lessens God's love for us, but the difference is between a love full of joy and a love full of sorrow.  Thinking about how deeply blessed I would be to see my kids become those loving, compassionate, creative and strong adults makes me want to likewise bless God with my life.  He who has loved me more than words can capture - how I hope my life fills his love for me with joy and not sorrow.

What Everyone Knows But You

It seems we humans have a limited amount of self awareness.  I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that unless we become reality tv stars, we never have the opportunity to see ourselves in action from the outside. It would probably do us some good.

It's an interesting dynamic when someone with a certain character flaw or a particular behavior that grates on everyone's nerves comes to you in shock and unbelief because from somewhere or another they caught wind of someone's opinion on it. And you realize the crazy truth. Everyone knows this thing about this person. Everyone.  It's common knowledge. Everyone knows they are lazy, or bossy, or they exaggerate, or are blunt or whatever, but they don't know it. Don't have a clue.  We are all aware of many of our flaws, but sometimes there are certain things that just fly right under our radar.  Probably because whatever it is it's something that we would find very uncomfortable to believe about ourselves.

I wonder sometimes what that thing is that most people could point out about me that I'm oblivious to.  Every now and then someone says something that surprises me and makes me ponder this question.  A long time ago one of my friend's older sisters told me that until she knew I loved her she didn't think I liked her.  She was the cool big sister so I couldn't imagine what made her think that.  I've also had people tell me that until they knew me better they found me intimidating. So maybe I can be unapproachable.  I'm very comfortable in my own head, and like I've said, I'll always be an awkward child at heart, so it's possible that my attempts at avoiding interactions I don't know how to navigate could make me seem distant. Sometimes I've noticed that subliminal assumption that people couldn't be that interested in knowing me, and so I don't push it.  And I'm lazy. Let's not make this all poor poor me.  Sometimes the amount of energy it takes to exit my head and engage people is just too much.

But that's something I've been working on, if that indeed be that thing everyone knows. But maybe it's something totally different. I'm sure if I put my parents, my husband, and a couple best friends from the earliest days all in a room they could tell me.  But who knows if I could take it. Or maybe they'd tell me that thing everyone knows but me is that I'm brilliant and interesting.  Yeah, maybe that's it.

God's Echoes

 

Sometimes teaching my small children things feels like learning them for myself.  It's like I can see a truth to teach them, and as I'm saying it realize it's something I've needed to learn or relearn. Sometimes I convict myself of my own issues when I'm instructing them about theirs.  Like when I tell them that if they don't know how to enjoy the things they have, they won't enjoy the new thing either.  And when I tell to them to remember that their relationship with their brother or sister is far more valuable than the toy they want to snatch or the turn they want to take.

The other day I strapped both of my kids in their car seats and then ran into the house to grab my purse and lock the door.  During the brief minutes I was gone Jackson was chanting "mommy at work" (which is what he always says when I go out of sight), and apparently Kinsey believed him and got it into her head that I had left them in the car and gone to work.  So I return to the car and find Kinsey in hysterical tears.  I ask her why she's crying (I was gone a minute!) and when she finally settles down enough she says through broken tears, "Jackson said you were at work."

I remembered that when I was little I had an irrational fear of my parents leaving me.  If they were out of sight for a couple of minutes, in my little preschool concept of time it was an eternity and surely I had been abandoned.  So I looked into my daughter's tear filled eyes and told her, "Kinsey, I love you. I will never leave you by yourself.  You can trust me.  It might seem like it for a minute sometimes, but I promise I will never leave you alone. Do you believe me?" Kinsey sniffed and nodded yes. In that moment, looking into my daughter's bright blue eyes, I could hear echoes of God's own words to an anxious humanity, resonating with my own anxious heart: "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

I love you. I will never leave you all by yourselves.  You can trust Me. Though it might seem like it sometimes from your limited vantage point, I have promised that I will never abandon you. Do you believe Me?

Life in a Vacuum

I think sometimes we wish our lives took place in a vacuum.  Where our decisions and desires affected only ourselves and didn't have any impact on anyone else.  Sometimes that wish turns into a delusion, and we let ourselves think  that this could actually be the case.  Well maybe if you are a hermit, tucked away in a mountain somewhere.  But even the hermit might have a lonely mother, wishing her son would come home.

I don't think we really understand the ripple effects of our actions. We like to talk about the ripple effects of the good things we do ('5 people you meet in heaven' style), while carefully ignoring the ripple effects of the bad ('5 people who won't be in heaven because of you'?). But every choice we make, even about our own bodies, impacts so much more than just ourselves.

Take something basic like your health.  On the surface of things how you eat, if you exercise, if you smoke or drink, impact you in the first person.  It could be argued that it's your body and if you don't take care of it, that's on you alone.  But the impact that one thing makes on the people around you and even society at large is actually quite stunning.  The impact on a spouse that suddenly becomes a caregiver, the financial and emotional stress on family members is very real.  Healthcare workers injure themselves more often because they are working with progressively overweight patient populations.  The medical expenses incured on a national level are depleting the resources of medicare and medicaid largely due to modifiable risk factors that are never modified. I.E. diseases you would not get if you took care of yourself!

Health is just an example. The same can be said of just about every choice we make.  How we treat our spouse, how we spend our money, how we treat the earth, our general morality.

We are too individualistic.  Everything is about us. It's our life, our body, our time, our choices.  But we are not alone and what we do or don't do doesn't just effect us, no matter how personal it is. We are little cells in a great big body.  If the hand has an infection that goes unchecked, the whole body can get toxic.  We can't keep making decisions as though we live in a vacuum.  If only we could sit and think and seriously consider how what we do will impact the people around us.  I think we'd be at least somewhat empowered to make better choices.

Love That Lasts

Inspiring stories seem few and far between sometimes.  Especially in the dark landscape of the ER.   The other day, however, I encountered two couples on the same day that seriously amazed me.

I was sitting at the front desk on one of my days doing 'triage' when we saw an old man trying to help his wife out of the car into a wheelchair. We went out to assist him, but he insisted that he did this all the time. This time however, the poor man almost fell and almost dropped his wife, who was bigger than him.  We helped them, but I could tell he was embarrassed.  Despite being in his 80s, he was a well built older gentleman, and nothing in his stature bespoke frailty.  As I checked them into a room, I learned that they had been married for 50 years, and for 10 of the last 50 his wife had been afflicted with Alzheimer's so severe that she could not walk or speak. And he had been her sole caregiver this entire time.  He was incredibly tender with her and wanted to help us any time we moved her or assisted her.

Later on I encountered an extremely unpleasant alcoholic.  Per his wife he would go on drinking binges that would last days and never eat a bite of food. When he was finally too sick to carry on this way, she would coax him to the hospital.  His wife talked and had a demeanor that implied this had been their ritual for a very long time now.  After a couple of frustrating interactions with this man, who as I said, was quite unpleasant, I remarked to his wife that she had the patience of a saint to put up with him for so long.  She looked at her husband and her demeanor softened. She told me that he was the nicest man in the world when he wasn't drinking, and in a tone that spoke only of true compassion told me that he suffered a lot from PTSD from his days in war.

I've heard it said that when someone loves another so unyieldingly it says much more about the person who loves than it does about the person loved.  These people weren't just overcome with a powerful force of love that happened to stay with them through the decades.  Their loved one wasn't daily inspiring this love by their own virtue.  These spouses developed patience.  They worked to see good through the bad.  They were faithful and steadfast when many would have run.  We all want the kind of love that stands the test of time and doesn't yield to life's storms.  But love like that is built on the foundation of character, not emotion alone. And so few of us have the patience to build that kind of character, and so never experience that kind of love. The kind of love that will tenderly care for someone you've committed to - even when they can barely give it back.

Lies We Tell Ourselves

 

I've come to the opinion that us humans are marvelously adept at telling ourselves lies.  Maybe not always complete falsities, but certainly an astounding amount of half truths.  I think this is because we desire to be and to appear much more virtuous (or important) than we actually are.  So we ascribe to ourselves lofty motives when really baser ones are in play.  We justify ourselves with empathizable internal stories for actions we know are wrong - or questionable at best . And no, I'm not sure if empathizable is a word.

Sometimes I notice this on reality tv shows.  How is it that no one in singing competitions ever says they want to be the next big thing because they love the way being center stage in front of a throng of adoring fans makes them feel?  Almost everyone seems to have a humble, selfless motive. "I'm doing this for my kids - to teach them to follow their dreams." "I'm doing this for my sick sister in law." "I'm doing this for my family, so we don't have to struggle anymore." "I want to share the gift of music, to uplift the people of the world!"  Just once I want to hear someone say, "Being on stage and captivating an audience with my talent makes me feel important, and I really like that feeling." Now I can't judge people's real motives. But I do  have a hard time believing that those things are the primary reason most people want to be an "American Idol".   

I also remember an interview on Dr. Phil years ago with a couple that was having an affair that both of their families (spouses and children) were fully aware of.  The woman talked at length about how she felt guilty, but kept hoping that somehow it was okay because they loved each other so much. She also emphatically stated that her children were her top priority and that their good was her chief desire. Your young children know you are cheating on their dad, but their good and stability is your highest goal?  Lies. But she did not want to accept the image of herself as someone who would sacrifice the emotional health of her children for an affair, so she told herself a different story.

But mostly - I catch it in myself.  The one person whose motives I am in fact privy to.  I like to feel like a good person- someone who is kind, interesting, strong, and virtuous. (Feel free to roll your eyes now).  When I do things or think things or act in ways that challenge this perception of myself, I find myself trying to spin the story in my mind in a way that makes me come out on top.  That perhaps incriminates the other person in the scenario more than myself. It's shameful to admit. But it's true.

I think this is one of the reasons the gospel doesn't make sense to us sometimes.  Because the first thing you have to admit is that you're a sinner.  And many of us have been telling ourselves untrue stories about ourselves for so long and believing the ones advertisers and pop culture tell us about ourselves, that we have a hard time believing the true story - that we're lost and broken. And we need a Savior.

When Fear Looks Like Anger

 Many of us are drawn to nursing because we like the idea of helping people - and I think most of us kind of assumed that we would be treated and responded to as helpers.  But often times we are responded to as the perpetrators. The ones responsible for pain and suffering, instead of the ones working tirelessly to try and relieve it.  That is one aspect of healthcare I was certainly not prepared for.

It is so hard not to take people's reactions at face value.  And especially hard not to react emotionally to them ourselves.  This is a lesson I am continually re exposed to at work, because  patients and family members can often be short and rude and even threatening.  The other day a co worker of mine asked me to start an IV on someone. After introducing myself and telling him what I was there for the man gave me a very serious stare, arched an eyebrow and stated "Better get that thing the first time or I'll be sticking needles in your arm." To which I replied (tartly) "You know it really doesn't help to threaten the nursing staff" and went about my task in indignant silence.

When I am inside these situations I get angry. I do not like being treated like the bad guy! I don't like people looking at me as though they need to protect themselves or their loved ones from me. I'm there to help them, darn it! However, when I am not in the situation, when I'm trying to place myself in someone else's skin, I start to understand. Slowly I begin to remember that it really doesn't have anything to do with me.  Often when people are afraid and helpless (especially men) they try and regain that sense of control over their environment. They channel their fear into aggression because it feels more secure than the fear. The man who has watched his elderly wife undergo countless painful medical prodecures and feels unable to come to her rescue channels that insecurity into pressure on the medical staff.  The parent feeling helpless to stop their child from experiencing pain or discomfort does the same.

I really hope that someday I'll be able to internalize this fact.  To stop feeling defensive and angry because people aren't responding to me the way I feel they should.  To see the fear behind the anger and respond with grace and compassion.