.JPG)
Tonight my DH was talking about life experiences and how he feels like he hasn't experienced life. He felt "sheltered and in a bubble" while he was growing up. I listened to him talk and tried to make helpful suggestions, but it didn't seem to help much.
After he left to go to bed I spent some time thinking about what he said, and about my own life experiences. We came from opposite points of parenting, so I had a great many experiences and was not sheltered. People often tell me "you're so mature for your age", I know they mean it as a compliment, but honestly it is not a bonus to be mature for your age. All it really means is that you have experienced more than you should have by that age. Having "experienced" life has matured me quickly, but it has also made me more cynical, hard and mistrusting of others. I didn't necessarily rebel against my parents rules since there were so few, but I did do things that were not in my best interest and consequently harmed my heart. As my DH craves experience and a knowledge of the world I crave innocence and safety. I carry the regrets and pain of my past with me as he carries the pain of isolation. As I write this I feel like I am equating the one to the other, when in fact, I don't believe they are equal. As time goes by he will gain knowledge, maturity and experience, but will do so with an older wiser mind.
While I get older I will learn from and remember less about the hurts of my past and develop the tools to deal with it...but right here, right now my maturity hurts, my experience and past life is hard to live with.
I wish I could help him understand the benefit of protection from the world as a child. I know that as parents we can go too far and create an idol out of protecting our children, and I am not advocating a bubble lifestyle, but I do believe that God has led us to protect our children from the sin in their own hearts and the sin that can be committed against them. I can hear him saying that we can't protect our children from their sin, but I believe we can. We can guide our children, we can make rules to teach them what sin is, just as God gave us laws to show us sin. I suppose what I really want is my slate to be wiped clean, I want to forget about what I did. I believe God has forgiven me and that my "transgressions are as far as the east is from the west" and that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". I also know that it is my sin that brings me back to the cross, but I still feel jilted. I long for the childhood of someone who was happy, well adjusted and secure. If I had been that girl I wouldn't carry the pain I do now, I wouldn't be the person I am now either, but honestly I would be fine with that.
Here's the problem with that, I am the person I am, I do have the pain that I have, and I do struggle with supporting my husband in his quest for the maturity I have...Any suggestions?
~desperately seeking relief~
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
(((hugs))) I feel like I could have written your post. Growing up my parents have few rules and I made some really poor choices when I was young. I have found that often I know God has forgiven me...and I have often taken my pain and laid it at His feet -- only to pick it up and stick it back in my pocket when I am done. God has forgiven me...but sometimes I have trouble forgiving me.
As far as parenting I am an advocate for sheltering (I was NOT). The headmaster at my dd's 1st school really gave me a clear understand; he equated parenting little ones to seedlings in a greenhouse: you keep them in "perfect" conditions out of the harsh elements until they are bigger and even then you only take them out into the elements a little bit at a time, the way a greenhouse will place it seedlings outside in the day for a bit and slowly increase that time to build strength in the plant. We should provide our children with a firmly rooted foundation before we throw them to the world for "experience". I don't know if I explained that very well but it is something that is so close to my heart and one of my own struggles as a parent (i.e. why I struggled so much with letting dd go to public high school). I will say a prayer for you today!
your past has certainly made you who you are today...and although i really didn't have a terrible childhood, there were certainly things that i would've liked to change and things that i did that i regret. but through those experiences, i know God brought me to himself. i hope you can stand on that. that He has purpose in your life and can use your past to help shape you and actually minister to others. of course you can't forget who you were then and everything that happened....but your slate HAS BEEN WIPED CLEAN. God doesn't keep looking back and questioning why you did the things you did, etc.
as far as the parenting issues...i'm right there with you. we want so badly to protect them from the evil in this world. and protect them from sin...but bottomline is that they ARE sinners and WILL sin. i think what kathy said last week was great... the focus of our parenting should be a repentant child. (of course we need obedience too!). our children will soon realize that we are the light in this dark world...hopefully they will quickly learn that although we are in this world, we are not of it and this is not our home. ok, i think i'm rambling. love you sara.
Dear, dear Sara,you are so precious and loved! Keri has said great things that you can take to heart because they are truth.
I realized that I had been angry with God for a long time because in His sovereignty He could have kept me from making the mistakes I did in life and kept pain from me, but we are learning so much how we become like Christ in His suffering, in our suffering. We are to die with Him, but we are also raised with Him, to abundant and eternal life! We can never experience the immensity of his mercy and grace without the pain. Never experience Him without it.
Psalm 119:71 "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees." love you, Sara
I remember the first time I saw the diagram in the back of GT - where the cross gets bigger and bigger. I totally freaked out - I thought that the closer I grew to Christ, the less I would sin and "need" the cross. So wrong and I hate it!
Sara, I want so baddly (sp) to have something wise to give you for Andy. He's a neat guy. How can you not like a guy that selflessly carries your furniture up stairs on moving day? :) Continue to fight for him on your knees and ask for the right words to give. It's a inside thing...in his heart and soul. Sigh
As for you my sweet friend...take it from your "older sister" time does heal. My list is of regrets is Looooonnnnggggg.
Jesus carefully holds our heart and he makes these itty bitty stitches. Not one scar will be left when he's done. You will be whole, stronger and even sanity will remain.
Rest. Breathe. Your Saviour is holding you in his arms "...singing over you. "
Becca
I share a little with your DH and a little with you. I was "sheltered" as a child by my parents, and was also exposed to the harsh reality that it isn't always "love" that keeps you isolated. I have as many hurts from that smothering, confining, exploitative parental relationship as I do from life outside those walls--different kinds of hurt, true, but they both do add up to who I am today. I also wanted to experience real life, and that pleasure cruise ended in a shipwreck. But that shipwreck led me to the One who will never dissappoint me, smother me, or keep the truth from me. He will never leave me, and will always seek my greater freedom. True freedom, not the freedom the world parades in front of us, seducing us so that we find ourselves the perpetrator and victim of our own demise. And some of that freedom is found when we recognize the truth about our lives, whatever they have been..."to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." i don't know about you, but the fullness of my past accompanies a fullness of love for Christ; and some of the hurt from it all is somehow transformed into a inexpressible love for my own children--the real kind.
Post a Comment