The Holy Road

Can't seem to hold steady.  Tossed on wave after self-sick wave of my own flesh battling this boy.  The boy who drives me to my knees.  Drives me so crazy I am always on the verge of tears:  the blinking brink.  Water courses down my red face, and I think I can actually feel my hair turning grey.  What IS it with him?  With us?  With me?  Everything an argument.  Everything better his way.  Big talk.  No action.  School battles, chore battles, music battles, relationship battles.  This household-this supposedly godly household- becomes a war torn heart break, and I wonder how we're ever going to live through it.  How are we going to survive the eleven year old?  Aren't I the adult here?

"Love covers over a multitude of sins."  That's what 1Peter 4:8 says.  Proverbs 10:12 warns, "HATRED stirs up quarrels, but LOVE makes up for ALL offenses."  And Proverbs 17:10 reads,  "LOVE prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.".

Oh, Jesus.  How do I do this?  How can I obey You?  How can I not grow weary in doing good when I wake up exhausted?  What to do on those mornings I want to stay in bed, pull covers over head and groan to be freed from this job?  When there is NO joy.  Anywhere.  When You say, "RISE!"?

I reach for Your hand.

Oh, God of the impossible, be the God of ME today.  Be the God of my heart and of my tongue.  Help me to bind that wicked vessel that lies between top and bottom teeth.  Prevent me from masticating on the flesh of own son.  The pressure is so great!  I feel as though I will never stop failing at this.  I WANT to do good.  I WANT to do right.  And then suddenly, the heart closes, the mouth opens and Hell comes spewing out violence on a little boy struggling with the possibilites of manhood.  Why on earth do you put mothers through this?  I want to scream because I know it's for ME and I don't want You to DO this to me.  I want OUT of this physical body being pressed so hard it could turn a lump of coal into a diamond.  Coal is a useful substance.  It burns.  It gives heat.  Energy.

Diamonds gather grit from the dishwater.

I know, Lord, the diamond that rests on my ring finger is a symbol that I am married.  That I belong to someone and am not meant for another.  Seems a sparkiling bauble.  This diamond.  I wonder if what You want for your children is that they be more than heat.  Is it more important to You that the world see this shiny chip on our lives to know that we are Yours?  That we are not meant for another?  Are You that jealous?

I am weak.  Sitting here crying because I know I can't do it.  I know if there were an easy way out, I would take it.  But for YOU.  The love You have built and the grace upon grace You have shown draws me to the holy road.  The hard road.  The hardest.  Though everything but Your Spirit inside me cries out, "No, Jesus, not THAT way!",  I will follow You.  I WILL follow You.  I will FOLLOW You.  I will follow YOU.

"Though You slay me, yet will I trust in You."  Job 13:15.

Bernadette