our intimate possession

 oh MAN I miss the creativity and bandwidth of writing. 

I am 99% sure I know what has sucked all of those creative and bandwidthy things out of me.

"Starts with a T", Matt would say. "End is EENAGERS."

I love them. I pour everything into them. I serve them, pay for them, pray for them, stay up at night over them, get up early for them, drive them, listen to them, clean up after them. Pay and pray, pay and pray. I love them. dearly. 

But they are killing me slowly, the eye rolls, sighs, pushing the limits, messes, and how dumb they think I am. I canNOT keep up with the moods, the emotions, the angst, the friends, the boys, the choices, the schedule, the bills. Cannot keep up.

I REMEMBER, Mom. If I could call you and apologize, I WOULD be calling every single day. 

I'd call my dad if I could and apologize to him, too, and to him for her. 

SO, I'm apologizing to you all for my horrific, entitled, mistaken teenage attitude, and one day, if the Lord gives me the days, they will apologize, too.

It is a hilarious joke of the Lord's, when I told Him I dreaded and could not do the teenage years, that He has given me FOUR TEENAGE GIRLS. at once. He is getting me back for all the things. 

What I'm learning, since Greg always asks, is how much I need His help...how much they are His...how much He can be trusted, how much I have to be unoffendable, and how much who I am is in HIM and not in them. I'm learning how "be anxious for nothing" means this too. How LOTS of Scripture means this, too.

It's hard when all you are has been pouring everything into them for so long. When you literally grew them inside yourself and have given them everything out of yourself for so long.  When your full time job for 17 years has been pointing them to Jesus. 

When you see them forgetting. See them confusing. See them questioning. See them struggling. 

Ah, the joys of Emma, throwing a tantrum over being hungry and the puzzle piece not fitting in just right. Give me toddlerhood.

How they remind me of me, these girls! What they say that I have said. How they remind me of the old sin nature within myself. How the Lord is patient and loving and tender with me. How His love is SO deep and wide even when I chose me again and again. 

O Chambers reminded me this week that our faithfulness must be tested, because it can only become our intimate possession through conflict. Believe steadfastly on Him, he says, and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. 

Everything. 

These dear girls, and the challenge and angst of these years, can kill me or strengthen my faith, all depending on whether I believe steadfastly on Him.

These tests will either prove my faith right, or will kill it...and I'm too stubborn for all that dying and bitterness.

Ask my girls.