Oh Lord,
As I look at this family portrait hanging on my wall, I remember
the circumstances under which it was taken.
It had been only four months or so since the separation from my
unfaithful and abusive husband, and life felt like utter chaos. I felt like I was constantly hanging by a
thread, but You, Oh Lord, kept me hanging and not falling! My new church in my new hometown was updating
their photo directory, so I scheduled an appointment for the three of us, our
first family portrait without their father.
I planned some cute coordinating outfits (not the ones in the picture),
but on the day of the appointment, their father caused yet more trouble that
delayed us, and we had to go to the photo shoot in our clashing colors. But when I saw the setting with the Joshua
24:15b quotation, my heart cried, “Yes!” and I knew that portrait belonged in the center of our living room whether it clashed or not.
Almost two years have passed. The children are bigger now. My daughter's bangs that she had cut for herself without permission have now grown out. As I look again at this family portrait hanging on
my wall, my heart aches. I ache with
longing. I ache with gratitude. I ache with the heavy sense of the weighty
responsibility of being the spiritual head of our household now that my husband
has abdicated this position. Lord, you
know I do not wish to carry this weight alone.
You know, Oh Lord, how ill-equipped I feel. My son is now twelve years old. He is becoming a man. He is at that stage where he needs a man to
speak words of life and truth into his young frame. When I hear him speak admiringly of his
father, it produces such a great tearing in me, because I know the awful things
his father has done. And yet, his father
is not pure evil. In fact, the tragedy
is that there is so much that was good, or at least that once appeared to be
good, in my son’s father, and yet his life now lays in such a ruin because of
the bondage of the sins Satan has used to wrap around his soul and choke
him. Oh Lord, I beg of you to not let my
son’s natural affections for his father lead him to justify his father’s
actions or minimize their evil, or worst of all, to follow in his
footsteps. Lord, please guard my tongue
when I speak of my son’s father in front of him. I have so little to say of his father that is
good. And my son notices it. “Why don’t you speak nicely to Daddy? He speaks nicely to you. Why don’t you give Daddy a second chance?”
Oh, but my son, you only see such a small part of the story! If you only knew! If you only knew the thousands of second chances
I’ve given him, only to have him trample them underfoot with mounds of fresh
wounds compacted atop. If you only knew
that the small pieces of our communications that you have seen are not
representative of the whole. If you only
knew that your father is a master masquerader who was able to fool an entire
congregation for years and walk in darkness while posing as a minister of God’s
light! Oh my son, how could you possibly
be equipped at twelve years of age to see through your father’s ploys?
Being equipped. (Sigh.) I feel so ill equipped. When and how are we ever equipped? Only in You, Lord, only in You. Thank you for reminding me of the story of
Deborah and Jael (Judges 4). The men of
Israel had abdicated their positions of leadership as well, and You equipped a
woman, “a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7), to judge Israel, to lead them into
battle, and finally You delivered the commander of the Canaanite army into the
hands of a woman to slay.
Solomon, too, felt ill equipped. His request of God to grant him wisdom (I
Chronicles 2:7-13) was born out of the gravity of the responsibility of leading
God’s people as king. You, Oh Lord, have
placed me in a position of responsibility to raise up two precious children to
serve and love You. Lord, they are Your
children before they are mine. But they
are the greatest treasure you have ever entrusted to me to steward for you, and I don’t want to
mess this up! Lord, how can I, a woman,
teach my son to be a godly man? I never wanted this responsibility. And certainly not on my shoulders alone.
And yet you remind me that I am not alone.
I feel alone. I want
someone with flesh and blood to come and speak with us, to help us, to teach my
son with me. But You are here. Teach me to rely on You. Teach me to be content in You.
You remind me that other men have been raised by single moms
and have grown to love You with their whole hearts. My own dear pastor is a powerful
example. Thank you for him, Lord! Thank you for his encouragement to me that
his mother is his hero for leaving her abusive husband and plucking the boys
out from that household to raise them by herself.
Lord, I don’t know how, but I know you have equipped
me. You don’t call us
to tasks without equipping us, even if that equipment consists solely of
the knees that You gave us, bent in earnest prayer to You to intervene. My heart is still heavy, Lord. My eyes are as wet as ever. But I trust You. I know You will intervene to teach my son
what I cannot teach him as a woman.
Lord, I give my children to You.
What else can I do? I rest in the
knowledge that You are good, you are powerful, and you love them. This is Truth. I will dwell in it. I will make my home in it. I will take refuge in it. You are enough; I will believe You. Thank you, Lord.
In Jesus’ name AMEN!
No comments:
Post a Comment