How to Welcome God to Move in our Darkest Parenting Moments

Kathryn and I connected over Instagram, where her posts from a mama-heart drew me in.  She’s walked a road as a mama that I couldn’t imagine, and yet I could relate to, as similar issues ruled our family’s life for an extended period of time, to the ones plaguing Kathryn’s little girl.  As she told her story poetically on social media, I was moved by her determination to lean into her loving God and into the truth of scripture as she shared her journey with readers.  I asked her if she would share from her experience, and I want to share with you.  My hope is that you’ll be encouraged and challenged to look for Him at work in your own hardest moments.  “Everyday welcome,” for me, is about not just welcoming others into our homes, but welcoming the work our Father will do when we yield our deepest desires to Him, so it’s my hope that in sharing Kathryn’s words, you’ll see a demonstration of that good, and extremely hard, kind of welcome.

Matted brown soils parched and cracked from the summer’s heat. The lack of rain depletes the dirt of its nourishing source. The plants wilt and droop leaving a sad mess of lightened green to brown. Taking a garden tool to the soil leaves evidence of something that lost life long ago; a cloud of dust hits the sweat on my brow, hands chalked in brown dirt.

Five days later we are in a small hospital room while our youngest daughter who is hooked up to two dozen wiry probes running from her head to a little black box held in a bag we affectionately call her purse. It was a dizzy time of making it in here, with an ambulance ride the night before and a rush to the pediatric emergency just that morning.

It’s 10:30pm and she’s fighting sleep with drowsy movements of her limbs. Rocking her, then trading to a position of lying while stroking her head lightly as I sang to her, her eye lashes batted against her need for sleep, her little rose bud mouth pursing up as she protested. Finally, as she felt the lull of slumber beckon her forward, I gently lay her down to find my tiny cot bed to catch a few hours.
But I couldn’t seem to find the right position to rest in, my mind tired from running the endurance run of the day and my body physically tired to match. Flipping from one side to the next on the rigid cot, I woke hourly to the beeping of the monitors. If it wasn’t the blue lite screen keeping me awake showing her tracking of breath, heart rate and pulse, it was noises from the night time hum in the hall. Or maybe it was the fear of waking to our little gal with another seizure.

That night in the hospital she had a couple seizures while she was asleep. I was in a foggy, half-asleep mindset pulling for her call bell alarm and hitting the timer on the wall to ensure the seizures didn’t go over the five-minute mark. It left me shaken up with heart pounding in my throat and sleep far from reach again.

Waking the next day my mind lay open and weary entering the deepest ache of thirst to my soul. I needed a drink of the living word to quench the drowsy parched areas that were splayed open from the repeated trauma of watching her go through seizures on a daily basis.

Watering the garden on a regular rhythm is essential to its life of growing. Nothing can grow and thrive without the drink of life which water gives. If left without, the entire garden goes into a survival mode. Waning and weakening; each plant is left to its own devices, eventually wilting toward the scrappy surface of dirt.

Just like feeding our bodies on a daily basis encourages our well-being, as does spending time with the Lord.

And because we were facing a daily pace of having a child with a chronic health issue, praying, reading the bible and listening to worship music—it all spoke to the very parched areas of our hearts. Time spent with Jesus, in any capacity, quenched the exhaustions, battled the heavy thirst, and allowed for peace, hope and joy to thrive regardless of the season.

But here’s the honest truth—we get busy and distracted and we might not choose to get refreshment and renewal through Him. This can easily cause us to falter back into ourselves. Into our own selfish thoughts, ambitions, earthly desires and devices. We might get snappy and irritated which leads us to make poor choices with lousy attitudes that affect everything and everyone around us.

I don’t know about you, but all signs might point to the fact that water on a regular basis is a necessity for us too!

Physically and spiritually, nothing can grow and thrive without the drink of life which water gives. If left without, the entire body goes into a survival mode. Waning and weakening; each thing is left to its own devices.

Maybe it’s our own devices of scrolling & controlling to temporarily fill up inside?

Truthfully speaking, if we were sitting across from each other with our hot coffees between us, I’d tell you that sometimes I seek a temporary fill-in and fill-up, instead of choosing to drink in God’s well-watered truths. And maybe you do too.

Perhaps you can fill in the blank right now as to where you run to first instead of Him. Because we can all attest to something we attempt at using to quench the deep-down thirst when we are desiring for a spiritual drink and fill-up.

But sister, you need to know something. Grace.

Grace waterfalls over us when we come to the Lord asking for forgiveness for the moments we don’t choose him first. We mess up, he hears us and see us, and he still loves us anyway. With his arms wide open waiting for our sorry, broken, tired selves to lay our pride down and run straight back into His flood of abounding life-giving waters.

In him, we find everything we need.

From Angela: Oh, how aware of this I am… I shared some of my thoughts on our hunger and finding all we need in Jesus here.

It’s is only when we pause and step back that we see the shortage of time spent within the word or speaking to him through prayer that’s causing the mass drought within the survival mode we’ve entered into.

In John 4:13-14 (The Message), Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

Deciding to water the physical garden after weeks and weeks of no water might not always salvage the plants within it, but choosing to open our eyes and hearts up to Jesus daily is going to refresh and restore us every single time. Opening the Bible every day and reading a verse to a chapter allows us to realign our mind and heart toward him. Because no wandering to any other place or thing is going to soothe that low-down aching thirst until we recognize that the main source of life & quench of thirst is always held within Him.

Are you challenged by Kathryn’s words?  Share your thoughts in the comments, or share this post to encourage someone else today.

Kathryn is a mama to four kids and has been married for over a decade now, to the guy she met at camp.  A dark coffee is her default favorite and reading is her love language, but writing has become her passion toward a greater healing that she found within Jesus after walking through and out of postpartum depression just over two ago now.

She admits that the present day struggles of facing chronic illness with her youngest can make shifts within her story but don’t prescribe the cure —clinging to the hope and peace found within Jesus that does. Her prayer is that we all yield the opportunities in sharing our story with someone else, because we never knew how that will meet them. Regardless of the yesterday-messy puzzle or the restless moments of today— there is rest, comfort and hope found within Jesus today.

You can learn more about Kathryn’s story (and her precious girl’s) on her Instagram account – check her highlight “Issy’s journey” to learn more and pray for her.

Inspiring (thirst-quenching, middle-of-the-messy) welcome,

Angela

Want more encouragement for the parenting journey?

• Powerful words from The Gospel Coalition on “Divine Words for Desperate Parents“
• Thoughts on nourishing our souls: “Diets, Junk Food, and Life to the Full“
• Three Parenting Myths We are All Tempted to  Believe, from Tim Challies