⁃ mom, can you come up for a bit? This is how Ivy calls me to their room after we already said good night, and Conrad and I read quietly on the couch. It’s usually to talk through something and to pray.
⁃ if a mosquito wakes you up, and it gets you, what do you do?
⁃ She prays about it, responds Jackie with such conviction it makes me laugh.I usually have to dig a little deeper to find the real question. Ivy deflects.
⁃ what do you mean?
She repeats the question. Jackie repeats the answer.
Ivy had sons scabs from mosquito bites from Croatia which she scratched and a bit of blood stained her pijama legs. That’s what she was worried about.
⁃ When you can’t sleep, what do you do? Asks Ivy, as a follow up.
⁃ She prays! Says Jackie again. You should try it. Mom always prays as a first solution to everything. I sensed a bit of sarcasm but also certainty in her response.
When i was not feeling well she asked: “well, did you pray? That’s what you tell me to do and last week when I had a headache I drank lots of water and prayed and went to bed and my headache went away.”
Jackie surprises me with her new found embraced maturity. She is the sermon I wrote for a decade that now is reflected back to me. I stand by everything I ever told her but I am most impressed that the ground I had sown the seeds was so fertile and rich and ready to give forth fruit.
I accept the congratulations with detachment. Everyone is so impressed by our parenting skills. We now only see the results of years of tears and feelings of inadequacy, or loss or frustration.
Letting kids free to find their own strengths and voice and personality appears easy, but course correcting when nobody is watching, or guiding ahead of time or holding my tongue, it can look like indifference or absence or easy parenting. But everything we do is intentional. And I do pray, even when it sounds extreme, or even my kids question or sigh heavily or dispute my choice of words and solutions. I confess often my shortcomings and I tell them I need Jesus as much as they do. And I relish in the freedom this already grants me.