Living to Die

In these quiet moments of naptime, I am faced with two options of how to spend the next two hours: I can catch up on the mountains of dishes from a very busy weekend, or I can sit here in my sunroom, sitting tea, writing the blog post that has been burning in my bosom.

It seems to me that it would be easier to write while the young ones sleep than it would be while they are awake. They enjoy watching me in the kitchen. So here I am, soaking up a bit of warmth from the cool morning sun and watching the sun cast window-paned shadows across the honey hued floors.

And simply thinking.

This life is the only chance at life we get. How quick we are to be caught up in the pell-mell rush of a mad society, sweeping the stragglers along in its current, saying hurry, hurry, hurry, and do more, do more, do more, and keep up, keep up, keep up.

Hurry, hurry, hurry – you're not hurrying fast enough – hurry more. And more.

But really, what are we hurrying towards? We race to fit all of our activities in so that we can get more done. We race madly, headlong through life, stressed and aggravated with all of the inconveniences that keep us from finishing our goals – especially those needy little nuisances called...

Our children.

So often we view them as impediments. So often we view them as aggravations to be managed. As road-blocks to keep sweeping out of the way as we fiercely bulldoze our way through life.

The young years in particular – we are so quick to view them as miserable days of drudgery to somehow live through by providing each other moral support and commiseration in MOP groups and playdates. Somehow we'll get through. Someday we'll get our lives back when these – these little leeches grow up.

These little leeches. These little needy leeches sucking our lives and our time away so that “me-time” is non-existent and so that there are even more dishes and laundry to be done but no one is old enough to help and they are always making messes and they never nap as long as they are supposed to so that I can have time to sit down and flip through a magazine and if I ever DO start to relax I'm always snapped out of it by loud feed-me shrieks or stinky diapers or needy hands reaching for hugs.

But wait a minute. Just wait a minute. So this society teaches me – that children are needy little annoyances to be pawned off to daycare as soon as possible so that I can get my life back. That they are inconvenient. Life-sucking. Exhausting. Maddening.

And so I see, in myself and all around me, the quick tendency of young Christian mommies to cave to the pressure to believe our children are our worst nightmares. To crave me-time and pout when we don't get it. To sulk when we can't sit and drink tea without being interrupted. To cry over mountains of dishes and laundry. To whimper because we don't get to be with just our husbands anymore and to sigh because we can't ever hug him without a half-dozen little hands coming up reaching for hugs, too.

But really. Really. Is this all there is? Is parenting something merely to live through? To merely survive and come out a triumphant empty-nester, joyful because the leeches have left our lives?

Or is this the kind of thing that will teach our children – like all of the world's children – that they are not really cherished; that they are not really, deeply loved; that they are driving us crazy and we'll be glad when they are gone...and so, one day, we will find ourselves needing their care and instead will find that we are not really cherished; that we are not deeply loved; and that we are driving them crazy and they'll be glad when we are gone. And we will sit in a broken rocking chair in a white-walled nursing home with indifferent care and nothing to look forward to but a forced once-a-year visit from our children to ease their guilty consciences.

Much like now, when we sit and read books with our children to ease our own consciences...to make them happy so we can get back to our lives and do something More Important again. I know I have done it from time to time. I am guilty as charged.

I am here to say that I am tired of it. I am tired of hearing the cry that our children our nuisances and we whine, whine, whine and look forward to the days when they will not be nuisances any longer.

Or, in other words, the days when they will no longer need us and we can get back to living our lives.

I say no. I do not want to live that way. I do not want to spend life living it to myself like the world's children do and find that when I die I have only myself left. I do not want to hurry through life, calling my blessings curses and slapping them aside, only to arrive with haste at death and find that I have no one beside me. I do not want to shun my Lord's commands to the point that I put my own soul in danger by swarming to believe the lies of the world and refusing to heed His truth. Refusing to put on His love and take up His cross and look to the joy set before me in His resurrection.

I don't want to go through life with blinders on, missing everything beside me, racing into the vortex of this mad rush our society calls life, only to reach the end of it and realize that I just lived life by missing it completely. I don't want to look back and see my children's arms reaching out to me from the past and realize that it is too late now – too late to reach back out to them; too late to put my other priorities aside and make them my joy; too late now to share the love of Christ with them; too late, and all that is left for me is that death which I have madly spent my whole life racing toward.

I do not want to reach death worn out and spent from living a mad rush to the end. I want to reach death worn out and spent from pouring myself out to the people God has put in my life; especially my husband, and especially my children. I want to reach death and know that I have called good what God calls good, and evil what God calls evil. I want to reach death and know that I have poured myself into my children and that, whether they really appreciate it or not, they have seen Christ's love through me. I want my life to be a love-song of grace; not a love-song to myself.
 

I want to live so that my life will keep speaking after I die. Like Abel who, “being dead, yet speaks.” I want that to be me. And I am pretty sure that a life lived to myself won't get me there. I will be buried and my soul may be in heaven, but my empty shell will rot and so will the memory of my empty life. My children will have no legacy to perpetuate but the same one I gave them – that their children – my grandchildren – are nuisances to be endured until they are finally gone and they can get on with living life in a mad rush to the very same memoryless end as mine. My memory on earth will not carry the sweet perfume of Christ from generation to generation; it will carry the stench of worldly selfishness and that will be my fearsome legacy.

No, I want my children to learn from me that they are precious in my sight; that I love them more than my own life and that their needs are my delights. That I love their questions and love their little squeaky voices and the pitter-patter of feet and that I truly believe the words of God: “Behold, children are an heritage from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward.” That I do not want them out of my way; that I do not think their needs are trivial annoyances; that I value them deeply and lovingly guide and shape them to become Christ-honoring men and women of faith and strength and love. To love God with all of my heart, soul, and mind, and from loving Him so, to reflect Him more, and to love my children as He loves His...more than my own life.

So I am asking all of you mothers out there – you life-carriers; you nurterers; you soul-shapers and heart-searchers – join me. Join me in a celebration. A celebration of life, and of all good things. And that list of good things most emphatically includes our children.

I do not want to be afraid to die. I am asking you to die with me. Let's die NOW. To ourselves; to our selfish wants...because in doing so I suspect we will find that the life of the dead-to-self is far sweeter than the life of those who live to self alone.

Let's live dead to self and alive to God; and in doing so, show Christ's love to our children and show them fullness of joy – for death to self knocks self out of the way and brings us into the presence of Christ. And “in His presence is fullness of joy.”

Let's stop showing our children that death to self means whiningly enduring hardship and trusting that somehow Christ will give us strength to just Get Through This Wretched Time. Let's show them instead that death to self is discovering what it means to really live – to live joy and fullness and grace. To carry the cross is to laugh in the face of death. To carry the cross is to proclaim to the world that we do not fear death for we serve the One who conquered it. He lives today and rejoices in His children bought by His blood. Let us, in our lesser way, reflect this by giving our life's blood – every beat of our hearts – away. Just give it away. Let's quite obsessing over that all-elusive “me-time” the world tells us we need and take our children by the hands and lead them to the cross and look up at the One who gave no thought to me-time...who lives to make intercession for us.

The One who is never too busy to hear our pleas. Who is always ready to pick us up when we fall. Who doesn't make light of the problems that seem too great for us that to Him must seem like nothing. He corrects us consistently and with love and doesn't spoil us and yet showers us with mercies and a thousand new blessings every day. Who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Who somehow delights in us even though we fail daily – hourly – every moment. I cannot fathom this kind of love, but I do know this: if I am His child, I must model this for my children. If I cannot, I must not know Him well enough. When I fail, I need to run to Him for forgiveness and wisdom. He will never scold me for asking Him for wisdom; He will always be waiting with open arms to hear my pleas for help. But I must fling myself upon Him if I am to have any hope of loving these precious children He has given me – to give them love that is even a shadow of His love for me.

But I have to do that for them. I must. THIS...this is my life's calling. Not to make time to watch that next installment of my favorite TV show. Not to find time to curl up and read that book. Not to travel the world. Not even desperation to find time to be with friends or to be alone with my husband, though those things are important – if they become all-consuming desires and I let them make me bitter towards my children, then no. I have made them idols. May my one object of worship be Christ.

May Christ be seen in me.

I will fail. I will have days when I will resent the mundanity of it all. When I will fail to look into the simple moments and see the glory that is there. When I will see piles of dishes and laundry and hear childish whimpers and feel overwhelmed by it all...it will happen. But I must pause to remember my Lord's climb to Golgotha and remember His many words in praise of children and realize how absurdly blessed and rich I am.

And never, never to give my children reason to think that I wish they had not been born, or that I can't wait until they are gone. Not by action, comment, or Facebook status. If I begin to feel strapped down by them, to take that attitude to the Cross and come away repentant and reminded that they are a blessing. If God declares them a blessing, am I not sinning if I declare them to be otherwise?

Our children are watching us. We must lead them to the Cross. We must show them Christ-life.

Join me on this journey...this journey of death to self...

Because it is not death to die.