The Lord is my
strength and my song; He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise Him, my
Father’s God, and I will exalt Him.”
Exodus 15:2
For twelve years, I worked in the field of addiction and
recovery as a counselor and family life educator. One of the most challenging experiences for
me was working on an all-male residential unit; many of the men were dually
diagnosed and had been in and out of the doors of treatment and recovery many
times. Often, we would have to send some
of the men to a near-by hospital to receive medical attention; when you are
active in the throes of addiction, you don’t do a very good job of taking care
of yourself.... When this occurred, it
was not uncommon for the patient to request another patient to accompany him to
his destination. The men would refer to
this arrangement as needing “strength” to go with them. I understood that reference to mean that an
addict alone is bad company. When people
are in the early stages of recovery, it is more than difficult for them to
resist the temptation of their demons – their drug of choice. Having a
companion along to help resist old behavior and bad habits serves as support or
strength for the addict in recovery. In theory, this is a good concept. We all could use support; someone to be our
strength when we are weak – that’s assuming that the trusted friend isn’t
experiencing a moment of weakness as well...
I asked the Lord to send me strength – strength to
effectively parent my children. Recently,
I have come to the realization that I allowed my oldest child, Joshua, too much
independence and responsibility too soon.
Joshua was supposed to be the perfect child; he was not supposed to
present with any challenges, because after all, I had more than my share of
challenges with Malachi. So I took my
eyes off of Joshua. I expected Joshua to
handle way more independence and responsibility than he was ready for because I
needed him to; I was overwhelmed with managing all of Malachi’s medical and
educational issues and didn’t have the focus and energy to attend to Joshua in
the way that I needed to. It’s really painful
for me to admit that. I know this
admission to be true because I am currently witnessing Joshua struggling
academically; he is easily distracted and hesitant to ask for help with his
studies – he feels like he should be able to figure it out on his own. And the lesson I am teaching him is the lesson
I am learning for myself as well – we all need help sometimes. Life has given our family a lot to
manage. We can’t expect to be strong all
of the time. We can ask God to send us
strength and He will, but more importantly, God is our strength. He is “our refuge
and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
Psalm 46:1 We can’t always count on strength from a
well-meaning friend because we are weak in our humanity. We can, however, count on God to be our strength for He has omnipotent
power!
I choose not to wallow in my parenting error with Joshua –
that would be a waste of precious time and energy. I choose to be excited about our second
chance! I have a chance to renew my
relationship with Joshua; a chance to be instrumental in his intellectual and
emotional growth and development. I have a chance to cement a fresh bond with
Joshua and I am excited! I’m excited to
help mold and shape this beautiful, unvarnished piece of clay – my son, my Joshua!
I’m excited for the discoveries we will
make together and who we each will become in the process. I’m excited to see the finished product – the
man of God that Joshua will become. And best of all, I have a chance to experience
God as my strength.
Question of the Day: Think of a time when you felt weak. How has God been your strength?
As a little girl, I remember the beautiful feeling of falling in love with ballet. Reminiscing back to a time when Mama and I would ride the el downtown to the tall, gold building on Michigan Ave. where I took ballet lessons every Saturday morning. At the tender age of six, I fell in love with the classical ballads, the thrill of fearlessly leaping through the air and the slow, steady ebb and flow of a waltz. It was magical! Ballet filled my soul…. After adolescence, I lost touch with ballet, and now, 30 years later, I’ve returned to love. Yes, love, for who could have known that ballet taught me so much about love, so much about God….
