Kids. Oh boy. 5 boys, 1 girl, and all isolated in one tiny house. Mix in two adults who both enjoy being in charge when the other is out… and no one is out… we are in... guys, this is crazy. I would love to talk about how the silence is beautiful… but there is no silence in this house. I would love to say that I am getting my spring cleaning done early, but I am very much not doing that. I wish I could say that my kids are doing their school work diligently and going outside regularly to enjoy the last snow of the year (oh please let it be the last snow of the year!). In short, my ego has some ideas of what this should look like, and no one around here seems to be cluing in.

Oh, if I only had my own way! The Facebook pictures! Imagine the children all gathered at the dining room table writing and reading and learning. We do start that way, but then someone makes a fart joke and everyone is suddenly erupting with laughter and wrestling and chasing and yelling and crying, etc., etc., etc. Imagine the nostalgia of teaching my little girl how to bake. The pictures of mommy and daughter with aprons on, smiling in a warm kitchen, with pleasant smells beaming from the oven. Oh contrare, in my kitchen there is the wreckage of 5 kids attempts at a jelly sandwich, coffee grinds from the morning still strewn around the last drip of coffee in the coffee pot, and sugar sticking to the bottom of your feet because the baby can now open cupboards and spill the contents there in. And while the daughter is spilling halve the ingredients everywhere except the mixing bowl the mother is just desperately trying not to hyperventilate.  I still manage to stage a good Facebook picture every now and then. Filters are great for blurring the mess.

I can’t help it guys, I really do want things to go my way. Think about it: What if the things you wanted could never be taken away from you? What if your desire was always fulfilled? What if your life always looked exactly as you planned? Oh, the satisfaction! It feels so good when that happens! And it is always so painful when it doesn’t. Seriously, have you ever mopped a floor and then had an entire jar of jelly fall, break, and splatter in every direction? Now I know, I am going to miss the mess blab la blab la… I am going to be so sad when my house is quiet, yada, yada, yada. But I bet you, even when the kids are grown, things are not always going to go my way… I still have a husband after all.

Well ya’all, I have been setting my mind to this problem for quite a while now. How to get rid of the “I didn’t get what I wanted” temper tantrum that happens inside of me every day? I have started imagining what life would be like without this little interior war.  What a blissful existence!

Now, I am ever so slightly smarter than I was in my 20s, and I know for a fact that you can “self-deny” and “be positive” and squish and squeeze your insides all you want, but the anger of “I never got what I thought I deserved” will still seep out through the cracks of your façade eventually. For example: The Park Voice. Have you ever seen a mom at the park being super kind and sweet about getting her kids home, but no one is listening? After about 10 minutes her voice starts getting thin in its sweetness and everyone, including her kids, knows those kids are going to hear it when mom is out of ear shot from the other moms. Like a pressure cooker, your anger at all the things that haven’t gone your way will start to burst out the cracks, and always on the people who deserve it the least: children, spouses, friends, or the poor telemarketer who happened to catch you on the same afternoon the baby decided not to nap and the toddler has argued with you about everything from the color of his cup to the fact that you toasted his toast! How could you?!

Now maybe I am just a huge control freak and maybe I am all alone in this, but I really don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.  I want to have what I want every time, all the time. I could paint this a different way, put a filter over it, and make it look pretty, but really, not getting my way has caused me more stress and pain than anything else.

But before you tell me I am out of my mind, this is life, get over it, …check it out - what if I changed the game? What if, instead of trying not to want my own way I just changed what I wanted? What if we could imagine something to desire that could never be denied anyone, that no one could thwart, that no broken jelly jar could ruin? And what if you could learn to want just this one thing, want it so much that it took over your every action? Dictated every thought? Consumed you in its fire? What if this desire was never ending, both the desire itself and the receiving of it? I have thought a lot about this one. There is only one thing I can imagine that could withstand every unforeseen circumstance and every collision with the strong will of a two-year-old. There is only one act of the will that is completely yours to control and completely free in its expression: the desire to love one another. What if all you wanted was to love? I can imagine it. I can imagine how nothing could stop you. No situation or circumstance could take away your opportunity to love because every situation calls for it, desperately needs it. No person could foil your ability to love, the worst person in the world would only increase your need to love. (And yes, I get it, you might not get to love the way you want to, but that is not the desire to love, is it? That is the desire to be right… which might be the farthest thing from love there is). Love is the only thing I can come up with that can find a way no matter where it goes. Love is so creative, so resilient, so undeterrable. Like a great river carving its path through mountains, you can slow it, but it will win eventually… And I like winning.

So that’s what I am doing over here, I am joining the winning team. For now, I am doing it because I am tired of loosing, but maybe eventually I will do it like Christ did it, the ultimate Champion of Love.  “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” – Jesus <3

This blog was inspired by the following music:

Ubi Caritas – Durufle, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-LQve92U1o