Shared Parenting

In the past week I have observed two shocking situations in families that have some level of child-sharing.

Situation 1:  I am sitting at the table with a woman and her two children.  Her child talks endlessly about a family member of his other parents family who was not treating him with respect and kindness.  The mother (who I'm sure felt sad about this and angry even) just sat and sympathetically listened to her child.  She spoke no words of support for her son's position or anger towards the offending party. She could not control or change these events.

Situation 2:  When driving through a trailer park I witnessed a man on his cell phone asking who I can only assume to be his child, "So, is your mom hanging out with any special "friends" lately!!?"

Um...the problem is this.  The children are stuck in the middle.  They don't know better than to rant about one parent in front of the other because they can't conceive the amount of pain that brings.  On the other hand, depending on the age, they may not be able to draw informational limits and refuse to be used as a pawn.

A while ago I read a book called "Between Two Worlds" by Elizabeth Marquardt.  In this book she talked about the child's perspective regarding living in two different families, houses and worlds.  She stated that the child never really feels home.  The rules are fluid based on situation and the sense that anything is permanent or lasting in life is thrown to the wind at a young age.   Divorce has become so common in our age-and since it has and these hardships on the parents are inherent-then let's step back and recognize that a child relates himself to both of his parents.  If one parent speaks bad about the other parent to the child-the child might believe that he is half bad, because he is half of the "bad" parent.  It is difficult to protect the children from these attitudes and frustrations that come up-but if they are protected from it, then it is out of love and compassion for the child. Even in the case of not sharing the child's outrage at an injustice as the woman in
Situation 1 showed.

Even in the hardest of situations-wisdom can be used in conversation to and around the children in regards to their "other" parent.  As the old adage goes "If you don't have anything nice to say...."

Rise and greet your neighhbor

So,  I've had a lot of church experience over the years and the most awkward experience has been repeated at almost every church I've visited.  The pastor asks us to rise, shake a hand, give a hug or something similar to people we don't know.  The heart of the matter is that they want us to form relationships with those we meet during this time.  In my lifetime I have met only one friend through this method.  The other 4,938 times I've done this it has been an unnatural act for me.  I'm terribly shy and the situation is tangibly painful, but aside from that-it is a mockery almost to the true intimacy that the church is supposed to have.  The Biblical description of church involves people being in real relationship, meeting daily, and sharing everything. 

 

So, what is the alternative?  Small groups or studies that require genuine relationship.  Barbeques, potlucks, Small classes with breakout groups.  Really, anything that inspires true relationships to form.  I've only seen one church do this well.  That particular church was small, about 45 people.  Everyone cared for everyone else's needs both practical and spiritual.  If someone needed support, a babysitter, people to help them move, company or a place to stay-someone would step up.  I know, it sounds like a cult-but it wasn't about our leader and there wasn't any crazy theology-just the above mentioned Biblical idea of actually being the church together and loving each other well, with actions and not just words.  That is the kind of church experience that I long for still. 

A rose

more thorns than flower

has yet to bloom

into it's full beauty

a voice has whispered "It will never bloom"

a rumor has spread "it is only thorns"

but I know what I planted

and I know how it was nurtured

these things take time

faith must rise

and call forth what is meant to be

what it is becoming

The Blossoming

Quitting teaching Sunday School was the best choice ever!

So...a few years ago my mother told me that there was an opening for a preschool teacher at the church I grew up in.  I applied and was accepted.  It took a while to develop relationships with the kids-but when they were solidified the structure looked like this: We all wanted to learn about God-and I was the tallest learner.  Little people can make good friends.  They see the world in a purer way and they are still horrified (not ambivalent) about things they should be horrified by.  They learned to trust me to be fair and I learned to trust them to cooperate with the structure because I loved them and they loved me.  (This somehow does not work in a home setting..I've tried with my own).  We had fun-learned about Jesus and I will forever treasure those two years.




During the time I was teaching though, I wasn't being taught.  I was needing outside inspiration and was trying to come up with that myself.  At the end I chose to let the position go because I wasn't passionate about knowing the Lord for myself and therefore could not teach the children that.  They deserved better.  Even though I knew the stories and loved each child...I couldn't give them what they truly needed from me. 

I started looking for a church.  I went to one nearby and everyone was so friendly-they all came up to introduce themselves to me after service. It was like a wedding reception line.  Someone even drove me home because it would be a long walk for me.  At the end of service they offered prayers for the many families in their church who were sick.  I was laid up for the next week feeling miserable. 

Eventually I walked into a church where I developed inspiration.  They taught things that I knew...but desperately needed to be reminded of.  As soon as I walked into the building I knew I was in the right place though.  I knew the songs and it felt peaceful.  Someone told me once, "You have to go where you have peace."  It was home.  I feel like I'm coming alive again and after each sermon I am more aware of what God is speaking to my heart. 

 

The sea is a hungry monster, which could swallow a navy, and then open its mouth for more. Are not many men made of the same craving sort? If you gave them half a world they would cry for the other half; and if they had the whole round globe they would weep for the stars. Man's mind never rests in sweet content till God himself satisfies it with himself -Charles Spurgeon

  Satisfied with God.  Living water that causes you not to thirst anymore.  Hm...seems I'm back to that.  How can a person be satisfied with God?  Wouldn't you have to be tangibly aware of him with you?  Most itches when they are scratched, begin to itch again.  Hunger, lust, companionship...  What is it to be satisfied to the point of contentment-forever? 

I went to a wedding on Saturday evening.  A friend of our family was getting married and the woman performing the ceremony read over the often quoted love verses:

Love is patient; love is kind; 

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  

 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never ends.

 But as for prophecies, they will come to an end;

 as for tongues, they will cease;

 as for knowledge,

 it will come to an end.

 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;

  but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;

 when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

 Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. 

As I listened to her speak, I weighed each statement as a single statement.  Separating them out, I weighed my life against each line.  I became so aware of the things that need to change in the relationships closest to me.   Just wanting to be different is rarely enough to make a person different, so I'm now searching for the tangible changes that I need to make.