Hidden and Forgotten Tears

As I witnessed the kids growing and develop their own uniqueness and take their individual journeys, I was baffled by my reactions to their failures, challenges and set backs.  I couldn't understand why it was affecting me so much.

I was sitting in the therapist's room when I posed this question to her.  I understood that the journey was theirs to walk through, but I was puzzled on why their negative experiences had such a stronghold and power over me.

She asked me tell her more.  I told of how seeing one of my kids struggle over math homework and the frustration following caused me to shiver.  I retold of times when my husband, the math go-to person in the family, tried to explain things to the kid with little or no success and ...the tears! the lifting the hands up to the air and the 'leaving the scene' instances caused my heart to shred into pieces every time.

I retold of the time when I had awaken in the morning ready for a new day and had asked God to help me be thankful.  I was ready.  I felt good.  But after I washed up, like any other day, and had gone into one of the kid's room to wake them up, instead of a smile I had found my kid grumpy, yelling, kicking and crying.  They told me they didn't want to go to school and said that life was miserable.  So much for a great morning.

I also retold of the times, many times, when my heart would literally feel like it had stopped, when the phone rang and the call display showed either the school number or my husband's number.  I would dread picking up, though I knew I had to.  I would hesitantly answer "Yes?" but my mind wasn't there anymore...it was in the million of things I felt was the reason for the call and the million of ways my life was about to be halted and changed...I was thinking of how embarrassed and apologetic I'd have to be and was desperately trying to tell myself to get a grip on things and come back to reality.

I recounted the time when my kids shared their loneliness and their wish for more true friends.  The pressures of conforming to the people around them.  The anxieties that come from comparing marks.  The smirks, giggles and eye rollings when they did not say, do, dressed, or thought similarly than others.  The embarrassment and humiliation and confusion they faced.  The fear of , and the actual rejection from friends.  I would recount also of just moments unspoken but to which I was witnessed to, of catching how people, discreetly but noticibly to me, would make judgments about my kids.

I remembered telling my therapists of times when I had witnessed my kids being on the other side of the equation - when they were the ones saying mean things, when they were the ones rolling their eyes, or smirking, or ignoring people or when I would catch them bragging.  A rush of 'something' would go through my spine as I tried to contain it.

And I remembered the times when they talked about the future, about fear of losing us, of anxiety over the world, their careers, the environment, and about realizing we, Christians, are actually the minority in this world and their heartache knowing many friends are absolutely uninterested to even hear about Jesus.

But as I recounted everything my counsellor asked me what I THOUGHT in each situation.  I had no trouble sharing how being part of their journey, witnessing it, was both a blessing and almost a curse (I didn't want to know so much!).  For each experience I felt sad, helpless, anxious, worried, surprised, embarrased.

And I could tell my therapist what I DID as a result of hearing them share or witnessing what they faced, did or said.

So...what did I think?  I paused for a while because I drew a big blank for each situation I recounted.

I didn't know how to answer that question.

So I continued to work on this for weeks, 'it' being homework throughout the week.  And eventually, I did find the answers.  It was always inside me; but somehow I had gotten so good at hiding it even I myself did not know how to find it.  But once I was given some direction, it was as if a rush of thoughts flowed in freely.

I realized some of my thoughts when witnessing or hearing about the kids' journey were things like:

- I must have missed something along the way
- I am neglecting the kids
- I can't handle this any more
- Things won't get better
- This is embarrassing - no one can know about this
- I failed

Do you seem a common thread?

Even though I was just a witness to the kids' experiences, my thoughts were all about ME; feeling like I am the one solely responsible and that their expeirences basically made me or broke me.

And as I continued to work on this and dug deeper, I have another question, that started off as a THOUGHT.

The thought: 

"I never experienced these challenges at their age"

The question to self:

 "Is this actually fact?"

The reflection forced me to literally go back mentally to my past - to the time when I was in between elementary and high school and beyond, and what I saw, who I saw, was a girl that lost her temper, a girl who talked back to her parents, a girl who felt rejected and out of place, a girl who tried 'too hard' to fit in, an awkward girl, a worried girl and a girl who made plans on what she'd do if both her parents died on a car or plane accident.  I saw a girl who was worried about how people saw her, a girl who was insecure, who cried at night under her pillow and a girl who said and did bad things too.

I wasn't always sad - I remember all my happy moments too.  But unlike the happy moments, where I could recount in detail every one of those moments, I had lumped my sad moments into one sentence:  "yes, of course, I had bad days" but when pressed, I could not see myself let alone recount those memories - I felt unable to retrieve them.

It might sound strange, but I was dumbfounded as I went back to all those memories.

I had forgotten all of that.

But then, I saw a teary-eyed 10 year old being mocked by a teacher for not knowing the right answer to his question.  I heard a 14 year old teen cry and try to explain to her mom how lonely it was to live life as a Christian and how unfair it was to not be allowed to go to parties and watch certain TV shows and how that had caused me to have no friends at school.  

I saw an 8 year old trying to hide the fact that her school uniform was a cheat version of the real thing because her parents didn't have enough money to buy the school one.  I felt the wet pillow this girl slept under on countless nights wondering why God was so unfair and wishing God would re-do her.

I saw 15 year old looking out of her dorm window as her classmates were being picked up by parents for Christmas and I saw a dumbfounded 15 year old girl stepping foot for the first time in a library because she had to write a Biology paper on Bears for the first time ever in her life.

I saw a university student calling collect to her parents outside the university library on the first full day of school because she was overwhelmed and alone and didn't think she would make it.

But what I felt as I was cosmically transported to all these memories was also RELIEF.  I realized that I had hidden these tears and never surrendered them to Christ and never showed them to Him, and never really allowed myself to acknowledge them.  I had been trained to BE TOUGH, HANG ON and to SURVIVE.  I had NOT been trained and taught to SHARE the pain, ACKNOWLEDGE it to MOVE on freely afterwards.

Seeing similar journeys in my kids forced me to RE-LIVE all those tears and to show them to Jesus and to re-tell them.

As it turns out, seeing the kids' struggles was less about how to help them and more about wanting to stop seeing any of it because seeing meant that I had unfinished business to deal to.  They became a reflection.  They reminded me of something I did not want to face.  And so, seeing their pain, failure or struggle reminded me of falsehoods I had THOUGHT in my life when I had gone through them at the time.

Seeing their struggles HURT me

Seeing their struggles CONFIRMED my own pain

So as I WORKED on this, and SHOWED it to Christ, and REMINDED myself of where I had come from and where God has taken me to-date, I also realized that....

Seeing the kids' struggles REMINDS me that my kids are SINNERS just like me.  They are frail HUMAN BEINGS just like me.  They are people who need Christ just like me.  Their struggles are not my own and they do not define me nor do I define them.  I have influence in them, but as they grow, they make their own decisions - I am NOT that powerful!

There was nothing wrong with the TEARS in my past - God was always there.  What needed re-wiring was my misplaced belief that if I hid them from view, that I would eventually forget and that it would not affect me.

Instead, reliving them with Christ and telling Him how I was feeling and what I was thinking at each moment FREED ME further.

It was never planned.  I never set out to hide and forget those tears...but I never knew that God cared about healing my life one experience at a time, and that I needed to be actively involved.  Back then, I just thought it would happen magically.

Don't hide and forget the tears, but don't relive them every day.  There is FREEDOM in Christ, and He is the only one able to redeem us.  But also know this:  it will be work you have to put in WITH Him too...but it is worth more than any fortune can give!