Today at my MOPs our speaker shared about storytelling. She was talking about storytelling as a way to connect with our kiddos, but she also shared books that are great for starting conversations and storytelling with your kids--keeping the communication lines open and building relationship. One of those was a storybook about a boy and his mom talking about pornography and she stated that it was a great book for helping spark a discussion about what to do when our kids encounter pornography. That was the statement-- when, not if.
For some reason this weighed heavily with me today, probably because I know she is right. I worked in a public school where kids had seen and experienced hard to forgive stuff by the age of five. But those were other people's kids. My job was to provide a safe place at school for them to grow and learn and flourish. Today it hit me like a truck how much I will not be able to protect my daughter from. How much pain and hurt she will experience. How much my being human will hurt her at times, and how much she has to experience the world for herself. The things in life that I wish I could just magic away so she can stay the same bubbly, joyful, giggle-randomly-throughout-the-day little girl that she is, and not be bogged down with rejection, shame, manipulation and powerlessness.
And then I thought of not just my little girl, but all of the little children and teenagers and adults that have to deal with pain and hurt and rejection and shame and being powerless. I thought of myself and the things I have done and that have been done to me that I wish could be undone. And my heart ached. And it still aches. And the tears have been flowing. It's moments like this I want to curl up in my bed, close my eyes, and somehow have all of the bad stuff just disappear.
Why? Why the pain and the hurt? Why do we manipulate and degrade and tear each other down? What is it in our human nature that feels the need to have control over others? To make others feel small? To make ourselves feel big? To use force and power to get our way? To take away other people's rights? And my heart ached more.
As I mourned my little girl's loss of innocence, even though it hasn't happened yet, I thought of my Lord and Savior. If my heart aches this much for this one child that I cannot protect and shield from life's aches and pains, how much more does my Father's heart ache for all of His children who not only feel the pain, but inflict the pain on one another? How He must cry and mourn and wish to wrap His arms around His little ones. How He must wish He could just fix it all so there would be no more tears and no more sadness.
But then again, how He must rejoice when we reach out to Him. How He must smile and laugh and sing when we do a kind thing to another. Or work to heal pain. Or strive to help others out of hurtful situations. Or just once wrap love around a stranger, or our family or a friend in an effort to say, "Pain is not the only thing you have to feel. You can also feel hope and love and healing and joy."
Somehow I have to get from the mourning to the joy. Somehow I have to remember that I don't have to stay in this space. I can mourn because it is painful and it is sad that I can't protect my little girl, or myself or any of my other loved ones from heartache and sorrow.
But I can also rejoice in the love that I share with my friends and family, the yellow roses still blooming in November, the walks in the crisp autumn air, the changing of seasons, deep, meaningful conversations with my husband, those random giggles from my daughter; in weddings and births and dream jobs and stories of people breaking free of what has been holding them back. I can rejoice in the hope we have that one day there will be an end to the sadness.
I can rejoice in all those things. But today might be one of the days where I cry out with the Psalmist- "How long O Lord?" Where I cry a little and hug my daughter closer and drink tea and watch the leaves blowing in the wind and wait for the joy that comes in the morning. Because I know it will come and tomorrow you just might see me dancing.
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